Ian Thal, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen!
Blogs by Ian Thal
From The Archives: A Misreading 3/9/2004 6:01:35 AM
Because I have been working on editing my Bread & Puppet blog into a series of articles for print publication while also rehearsing the new Cosmic Spelunker Theater show, "Waltzing to War" (see "Events" for more information) I have not had time to write a blog entry in a while.
For your amusement, I am reposting something from my journal originally written on November 19, 2002 Everyone is giving me a hard time this morning. As usual, I get a latish call to get to my usual school. Even though it is my usual school, I can never count on actually being there that day and so I can't actually go to my usual school and do my job until I get the call. They could easily ask me to come in all week but instead they call me at last minute and I average an hour long commute along with whatever amount of time it takes from me to go from phone call to my front door. So today I am later than they like. They give me a bit of a hard time, even suggesting that I get up early, be dressed for work and be ready to make a dash for the train just in case they call me at that given minute. This is one of the things I hate about the job. They know that when they make a prior arrangement with me to come in that day, that I am on time and that no matter what time I arrive, I'm good at what I do. This job is fitting less and less with the rest of my life.
After my first dress down of the day, I begin to head to class when a teacher of about the same age, fitting the stereotype of a big loud obnoxiously macho jock walks up to me and addresses me "IAN! I'VE BEEN WANTING TO TALK TO YOU! I'VE BEEN HEARING ALL SORTS OF RUMORS!"
"What sort of rumors are these?"
He leans in close and whispers, "I heard you were an erotic mime. What is that?" I am a bit disturbed at the misunderstanding and try to figure out what it is he must imagine I do, "have you been showing the kids erotic mime?" All I can guess is that he must think that I dress in tights and white face while pretending to have sex with invisible people. I cringe.
"Well, I am a trained mime...."
"Look, I read it on your own website that you are an erotic mime." I am more worried that he's a teacher as though the words 'erotic' and 'mime" both appear on my page, they do not even appear in the same paragraphs let alone next to one another.
"I am a mime, and a poem of mine was nominated for the Cambridge Poetry Award for Best Erotic Poem-- but those are really completely unrelated facts."
This award nomination has set up all sorts of bizzare effects, including a very terse email from my father which can only be another sign of disappoinment /Ian didn't become a scientist like I wanted, didn't become a lawyer like I wanted, didn't become a politician like I wanted, didn't become a university professor, which I didn't really want but was willing to settle upon, and now has become an award winning author of smut-- but even with a booming porn industry can't make money... /; One performance artist emailed me with excitement upon discovered that I was "reknown for my erotic poetry prowess!" and my poet friends laughed because they know how rarely my poetry ever touches upon sexual themes-- yet there I was with an erotic poetry award nomination.
"Yeah, but you shouldn't be doing erotic art and being a teacher."
"The poem in question, isn't the slightest bit salacious or ribald. It's actually pretty clean compared to what you hear in the class every day. I'll even recite it to you just to prove it:"
"Okay, let's listen..."
Mint in Our Mouths
The cutting scent of mint interupts my reading of a literary journal whose cover has made me a pariah. I smell the chocolate disolving in the mouth of the woman seated seven seats . and across from me curly red hair in french braids
candy wrapper crinkling in her fingers.
The rapture fells the magazine from my hand and has me reaching for my notebook and a pen.
"That's it? That sucks!"
"Well, I didn't say you would like it."
He shrugs, "just ribbing ya. It's better than anything I can write."
"Thanks."
"Now why don't you just get up at 4:30 and something and just get here early?"
Postscript:
Since then, I have been nominated two more times for the same award for erotic poetry and for the third time, I have not won. I also now live a 25 minute walk from the school in question and have since begun to perform in tights and white face (as seen in a recent Boston Globe article dated March 4, 2004.) I have also figured out how to combine the erotic aspect of my writing with my mime work-- though I still do that rarely and never on the job.
