taking notes on how to bridge gaps

"All that I knew was that I was going to be an artist. That was wild for a girl of my generation from New Jersey at a middling college. My mother had been a bit of a rebel once...but then she got confused, or maybe it was disinterested. I always kept my eye on the prize." — Elizabeth LeCompte to Jane Kramer in the New Yorker, October, 8 2007

when you're in the middle of something, you take inspiration from those who cleared the gap, so I've been reading a 1993 bio of Isak Dinesen, who chose "lions rather than family," I found at Forest Books last night, after dinner with a singer pal and a chat with the book seller about whether one read for characters, for language, for the story or just to distract oneself period. And so I rememberd my love of Dinesen, a mistress of language as well as her storied life, which included a mix of "aristrocrats, brigands, murderesses, vagabond actors, and high priests..." and penning great books. ...also inspired by a NYer profile of Elizabeth LeCompte, the founder of the Wooster Collective, a mad creative scientist if there ever was one, who survived years of folks walking out of her productions before her now wide acclaim....