Gregarious Expressions

The first time I tasted Balsamic vinegar was at a dinner party at my first-year college advisor’s house in Madison, NJ. I would go on to take French classes with her after I declared my theatre major and had to choose a new advisor. But she was huge in that year as I tried to figure out who I could be in the world away from home. It was probably the first time I had lettuce other than iceberg, too.

Thank you Dr. Marie-Pascale Pieretti for showing me how a professor can nurture her students. The texts we read in our freshman seminar were the hardest I’ve ever had to read. The course was something like “Signs and symbols in the Nouvelle Vague movement of French Film.” Semiotics. Linguistics. What?! We worked hard, though. We learned about things I couldn’t have imagined existed back in Moscow, PA.

And then she rewarded us with salad! I’m sure something else was served but all I remember is red leaf and that simple balsamic and olive oil dressing. Letting the plant sing. No need for toppings to weigh down the leaf or distract from that surprising flavor.

I had grown up eating casseroles made with Campbell’s cream of … soups. Meatloaf. Hamburger Helper. BBQ in the summer. Seasonings came out of packets – ranch, Lipton onion, gravy, etc. An occasional chicken soup or goulash. Mom worked. She didn’t have the time or budget to gourmet.

It’s okay. I’m not angry with her or anything.

It positioned me to appreciate all of the wonderful things I would go on to explore. I’ve learned to taste everything (except bugs LOL) and that quality ingredients are worth the price. I believe the honey crisp apple cider is worth the extra $2.

Just because I’m eating alone today doesn’t mean I shouldn’t eat well. There’s a roast in the oven and I’m about to sauté some baby bellas. The salad is simple. I need to nurture myself so that I can give my best to the students currently under my care. I’m grateful to have the excuse. -ag

Be sure to add our Common Play Factory site and socials @ dramastruction.com to keep up on news about Maureen McGuigan’s play Remember You Must Die: A Comedy, premiering at the Scranton Fringe Festival this October. The play runs Thursday, Oct. 5 through Saturday, Oct. 7 at 8:30 p.m. with an additional matinee performance on Oct. 7 at 4 p.m. Tickets are only $15 and are available at ScrantonFringe.org.

I’ve been working with Maureen for months as a dramaturg as she’s woven her life stories into dramatic shape and edited the script into a tight 45-minute, Fringe-length work. Now, I get to put my director hat on and help her rehearse her performance and presentation of the play. Not trying to sell you too hard here, but I’d be amiss if I didn’t mention our gratitude to Jason Smeltzer who will perform music for the show. Yea!

There are a lot of other shows on the Fringe menu. We encourage you to check out the schedule and see as many shows as you can!

Sharing the Scranton, PA, references I stumble upon in pop culture and the arts has become a hobby of mine since we used to track such mentions at the (now defunct) electric city weekly newspaper long before The Office came to town.

After years of reading Lorrie Moore’s “How to Become a Writer” with my students, I finally got around to the rest of the author’s magnificent short story collection Self-Help (1995) last week. I was shocked to discover the prominent role Scranton plays in “To Fill.” In this story set in Philadelphia, “Scranton” comes to represent Tom’s affair. He uses the name of the city to refer to his mistress, rather than sully her given name, Julia. The other woman, we eventually learn, is a poet who works as a teacher in Scranton. “Scranton” soon becomes a dirty word in the mouth of our narrator, Tom’s wife Riva. The city’s name is henceforth equated with rejection and betrayal.

Here is the first mention.

“The woman in the health food store, I believe, is slowly losing her mind. Every time I go in there, she is slumped on the wooden stool behind the register more dazed, more sad than before. She recognizes me less.

Today, I am the only one in there and when I say, ‘Excuse me. Can I get two pounds of bulgar wheat?’ she continues to stare at the coconut shampoos, her legs frozen in cross, her back a curved mound beneath the same pink-grey sweater she drapes like a small cape over her shoulders. Finally, she says, ‘Huh?,’ but never looks up.

‘Bulgar wheat,” I say gently. ‘Coarse. Like last week?’

‘Yeah,’ she pulls at the sweater then goes through some sort of pelvic swivel which tilts the stool just enough to spill her down and out of it.

She scuffs around the counter to the bulgar wheat, reaches for a scoop, a paper bag, and then bursts into sobs. I try to think of what to do. I quickly grab three coconut shampoos to help out her business a little and then go to her, put my arm around her and tell her about Tom’s secret affair last year in Scranton. And how I visited him there as a surprise and learned of the whole thing and got drunk and stuck postage stamps all over myself and tried to mail myself home. That always cheers people up when I tell it in “Scarves and Handbags.”

She smiles, shuffles over to the register, charges me for four, not three, coconut shampoos, and the bulgar wheat.”

-excerpt from “To Fill” by Lorrie Moore.

Sometimes we need art to absorb toxic angst lest we poison ourselves with anger. -ag

Simply saying I turned 51 last week does not convey the heft of these years I’ve accumulated.

I am officially old enough to sit around and talk about the old days.

It was kind of Lawrence to have me as a guest on his revived public access program “Stories, Wisdom & Recipes.”

Find it on Electric City Television via ECTV.Network or watch via YouTube, below.

peace & blessings -ag