What Inspires Me? The Third Act
This has been a wrenching few weeks. My dearest, long-time adult friend, John, passed away suddenly mid-December. (“Adult” as in we were of-age when we met, not that we were grown-ups.) We returned from his memorial Monday and then attended another memorial Tuesday for Bob Lupone, co-founder of the MCC Theatre, as well as an actor, primarily a dancer—the first Chorus Line Zach, in fact. (And yes, he was Patti Lupone’s brother.)
Robert Lupone, “Zach” with ”Cassie” in Chorus Line
I’m not going to talk about John here, but this is for him and about him, too, so bear with me.
Bob Lupone wasn’t a “friend,” but through MCC he was a part of our lives. MCC, the Manhattan Class Company, is an Off-Broadway Theatre Company he founded along with his maybe first adult friend, Bernie Tesley in the mid-80s—, the same time John and I began cooking together in the New Harvest kitchen. When they founded the MCC with a mission: “To create new work for the American stage.”
Almost 40 years later, the MCC is renowned for staging new plays—many that have gone on to bigger and more. And most importantly, MCC it is committed to and renowned for workshopping, developing, nurturing new playwrights.
In the MCC to tribute to Bob Lupone and at his memorial, many who spoke or shared written testaments talked about how much he loved discussing the work during creation of a play and performances. How they would “walk out of the theater anxious to go to the bar or restaurant and spend the rest of the night hashing over what [they] had seen?” And how, when developing plays he always asked the tough questions.
Lupone called that, the part that sticks with us afterwards, the things that keep us returning, remembering, making us think, keep us savoring the meal long after the dishes have been done, The Third Act.
“Whenever we considered a play Bob always made us ask ourselves if it had a ‘third act’? ”
Jubilee by Ellen Yeomans is A Third Act
A Third Act! Life beyond the stage, the page—afterlife.
When working with picture book creators—either workshopping our own work or discussing/dissecting published picture books—books we wish we’d written and those we are glad we didn’t—much of the conversation is about that after. The Third Act!
For lack of a better term, I call it the “about-about” as in sure we know what happens in the story but what is it really about? What is a reader left with afterwards? What’s the take-away? And what keeps us returning to the same story over and over again? Now I have a better name for it “The Third Act.”
Since John passed, we all—John’s family and friends—have been sharing photos and memories. Below are a few from our big-belly-laugh moments:
Give Me Somebody to Dance With
Tourists in Turks: John and me at L&R’s wedding
Play Me the Music!
“Baby you can drive my car!”
Give Me a Reason to Dance
John at M&M’s wedding. That’s not me dancing with him—wish it were!
The Third Act! That’s inspiring!
“All I ever needed was the music, and the mirror, and the chance to dance . . .”—Chorus Line
WINNER of the "WINNER-WINNER CHICKEN DINNER" QUARTERLY GIVEAWAY IS . . .
THE GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the Quarterly Giveaway is . . . Fanfare please!
Wait! Before we announce the winner, huge thanks and fishbowl love to all of you who entered this quarter’s Winner’s Choice Giveaway by subscribing to my blog, “Kelly’s Fishbowl,” sending letters & drawing to Norman the Goldfish’s advice column “Ask Norman,” or sharing snapshots of “Activities” on social media.
The good news is you made our fishy hearts flutter with joy. The better news is, there weren’t as many entries as there could have been—did you forget you could enter more than one time each quarter?—so all of you who did enter have a 1-30 chance of winning. Talk about great odds!
In the interest of fairness, we wanted choosing the winner to be completely random random drawing. And in the interest of transparency, we recorded the event. As we know you’re on the edge of your seat, anxiously waiting to find out if you are IT!
Watch the Winner Selection YouTube Video! (Not showing up on your device? Click HERE!
And the winner is: Marina V
Lucky Marina will win dinner with a chicken or her choice of any one of these fabulous prizes:
To all of you, There’s still next time! Enter now, enter often, even better—have your kids, students, second-cousin on your goldfish’s side enter. There is no limit to how many times you enter—or WIN the Quarterly Winner-Choice Giveaway!
Poetry Challenge #280-Happy Accidents
Here are two things about W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) He’s an ODWG (old dead white guy) author and in one of his short stories, Rain, set in the South Seas, the characters drank the dankest, smokey-maybe-a-dead-body-or-at-the-very-least-fungus smelling tea: Lapsang Souchong, constantly while it rained. (While I gagged drinking it, I do love saying it—lapsang souchong, lapsang souchong—such a nice feel in one’s mouth.) I bought some to try while reading one of his books, Of Human Bondage maybe, or Razor’s Edge—a ragged, yellow-paged copy I found on my grandfather’s shelf one summer vacation. Even through several layer of wrapping the tea stank up the house.
His snarl says it all . . .
But here’s another thing about W. Somerset Maugham, the thing I didn’t know before Googling poets born on January 24. W Somerset Maugham wrote poetry—evidently... An intensive Internet search through all the usual poetry websites only turned up one of his poems (which I could not bear to read let alone reprint) and several interesting sights of poems written in W. Somerset Maugham-ish style. But that was it. However Maugham is credited with having spoken about poetry in the most glowing terms, which in itself makes him worth celebrating. Bravo W. S. M.
“Poetry is the crown of literature…and the sublimest activity of the human mind.”
Here’s a little more: Maugham was born in Paris on Jan 24, 1874, at ten was sent to boarding school in England and then to Germany for University before returning to England for med school. He qualified as a physician but never practiced. It’s amazing how many doctors write and/or compose music…a topic for another time…
Poetry Challenge #280
Not Your Ordinary ODWG Poem
With nothing of Maugham’s poetry to copy we can write any sort of poem in any style we want, let’s do exactly that.
And, because it’s his birthday, let’s use a Maugham-ism:
Title your poem, “A Happy Accident.”
With that as your inspiration write a poem that absolutely could not have been written by an OWDG… lapsang souchong drinking or not!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #279-Ravenize
Maybe the cold drear winter weather causes writer’s minds to turn toward horror. Mary Shelley was born in London, Stephen King in Portland, Maine, and the great granddaddy of horror, Edgar Allan Poe, was born January 19, 1809, in Boston, Mass.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
”‘Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
These famous lines are from the poem “The Raven”, a long, narrative poem about a raven that came to visit a man and wouldn’t leave. When the poem was published in 1845, it made Poe famous in his lifetime, but it didn’t make him much money. Many people reprinted the poem or mimicked its rhythm and rhyme with their own words.
Poetry Challenge #279
Ravenize
Now it’s your turn!
Write a poem with the same rhythm and rhyme scheme as “The Raven”.
If you’re not sure how to get the rhythm, count the number of syllables. Start your poem with “Once upon a time…”
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, write it!
In keeping with his life—and writing—Edgar Allan Poe’s death is spooky and mysterious. One day, he left on a business trip and . . . that’s all we know. For a treat listen to the whole story on The Dinner Party podcast.
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
Poetry Challenge #278-Bayard Taylor
Our poet of the week, Bayard Taylor, deserves a round of applause—and danged if he didn’t get them back in his day.
Bayard was born January 11, 1825, in Pennsylvania. He was a journalist for the New York Tribune and a travel writer. As a poet, he was very popular. It is said that a crowd of over 4000 once attended one of his poetry readings. That was a record that stood for 85 years!
You can find many poems written by Bayard Taylor at Poem Hunter.
One of Bayard Taylor’s poems I particularly enjoyed is called Storm Song. I’ve posted it here for your your reading pleasure. Feel the foam flying free…
Poetry Challenge #279
Foam Flying Free
Bayard Taylor’s poems generally rhymed and dealt with current events and people he knew.
Think of an event you have recently attended (a class, a lecture, a party, a dinner, etc.) and write a rhyming poem about the event.
The image of Bayard Taylor above is his standard-issue author/journalist photo. The image below is of a portrait painted of him—I can see hoards coming to listen to him posed like this!
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, write it!
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .
What Inspires Me? Woody Guthrie "Keeping the Hoping Machine Going"
Happy Brand New Year! 2023. Time for fresh starts! New beginnings! Resolutions! Did I hear a GROAN????
Call me a hypocrite because every-single-other year I have written a post about making resolutions, their value, how important goals are yada-yada. . . but. . .
I hate making resolutions!
Not because I don’t have resolve. I absolutely do. Along with a mean followthrough…and I am not talking tennis!
"Hey hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song..." when Bob Dylan was a boy, he went to meet his hero. This PB by Gary Golio and Mark Burkhardt tells the story.
The problem is that coming up with that list of resolutions takes so dang long, wheedling it out to the important few, even longer—and when I’m finished my list of resolutions is always soooooo boring.
Which brings me to Woodie Guthrie
You might call it Back to the Future because I am talking the Woodie Guthrie circa January 1943. When he was on the road, seeing America and writing, strumming, singing songs, telling it like it was—with hopes for how it could be.
On January 1st, 1943, Woodie drafted and illustrated a 33-item list of resolutions.
An inspired heartful list with resolutions he felt worth fighting to keep—Number 33 is exactly that:
“Wake up and Fight.”
A few others touched me especially, including:
“Keep Hoping Machine Running”
“Dream Big”
“Write a song a day.”
“Dance Better.”
Don’t take my word for it! Go on and read for yourself (I’ve included the list below along with a link to the Town and Country article in which it was unearthed. Who knows a few items on the list might be just the reminder you need to encourage you to resolve that this will be a great great year!
Keeping our hoping machines running . . . now that’s inspiring!
Here’s to YOU and 2023, too!
And hearty thanks to @clarenashme for bring the article in Town and Country to my attention. Click the hyperlink to read it in its entirety.
Suggestion: And, if you have not yet visited the Woodie Guthrie Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma—add it to your list. It is amazing! And right next door is the Bob Dylan Center!
Poetry Challenge #277-The Prophet
Today, we celebrate Khalil Gibran (1883-1931). You know the author of that dog-eared bent spined paperback entitled The Prophet? The one so oft quoted at weddings? Who hasn’t read, owned, or at least seen copy? Apparently no one ANYWHERE! Poetry Foundation called Gibran “the best-selling American poet of the twentieth century.”
“He was one of those rare writers who actually transcend the barrier between East and West, and could justifiably call himself – though a Lebanese and a patriot – a citizen of the world.”
Khalil Gibran (also spelled Kahil) considered himself an artist first, a writer second. He was born Jubran Khalil Jubran on January 6, 1883, in Bsharri, Lebanon. In 1895, when he was 12, Gibran immigrated to the U.S., along with his mother and sibling. Their surname Jubran was Americanized to “Gibran.”
Gibran early works, published in Arabic newspapers, were sketches, short stories, and poems written in a conversational style about Middle Eastern immigrant’s experience in the U.S. Gibran’s work, both art and writing, were not critical successes. Nevertheless, his plain though poetic language style made his work, especially The Prophet, hugely popular--one of the best-selling books of all time it’s been translated into more than 100 languages. Here’s a selection of the “Love” chapter:
Poetry Challenge #277
On the topic of . . .
Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet is really a collection of poetic essays divided into chapters during which “The Prophet” extols “truths” of various topics: love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, housing, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.
For today’s prompt, as an homage to Gibran, choose a topic, either from the list above or otherwise, and explore its many aspects in a poetic essay. As Gibran did in “Love” and the chapter on “Children” (excerpted below*) include the “dos and do nots” of the topic.
Set Your Timer for 7 Minutes
Start Writing!
Don’t Think About it, Write It!
*For inspiration, here is a selection from the chapter on “Children.”
Cindy Faughnan and I began this 7-Minute Poetry Challenge 2400+ days ago. Now we take turns creating prompts to share with you. Our hope is that creatives—children & adults—will use our prompts as springboards to word play time. If you join us in the Challenge, let us know by posting the title, a note, or if you want, the whole poem in the comments.
Click on Fishbowl link and sign up to receive email notifications from Kelly's blog (aka The Fishbowl):
All who subscribe, comment or share a poem will be entered in . . .