One of the highlights of my summer was being a Visiting Writer at the Thalia Book Club Camp in Manhattan's Thalia Theater and getting to work with some really terrific kids. In the picture below I'm holding a pillow case and pretending to be Charlie Brown on Halloween, saying “All I got was a rock!” (The audience's reaction was stony.) Things picked up, though, when each kid reached into the pillow case and pulled out something they had “found in a sofa,” and they then improvised skits about how those objects - keys, remotes, wallets, watches - led them on wacky adventures.
Some of the contents of the pillowcase. The least recognizable are a thimble, bell, yo-yo, and (upper right) a nineteenth-century glass magic lantern slide depicting a wizard waving a wand at a cauldron. The kids got together in groups of three, each got an object, and then they combined their three objects into a story. (Pick three objects. Try it yourself. This is as interactive as this blog gets.)
The last time I had been in the Thalia Theater (One of New York City's great revival houses) was in 1969 for a Marx Brothers double feature and yes, my chewing gum was still under the seat. (And still viable, which was terrific, since Teaberry is so tough to find these days.)
My favorite muse has always been Thalia, the muse of comedy. (A close second is Errata, the muse of misinformation. In college I wrote a poem entitled "An Odd to Errata." which, in the second edition, included a slip of paper explaining "Odd" was supposed to be "Ode.") (You had to be there.)
My favorite muse has always been Thalia, the muse of comedy. (A close second is Errata, the muse of misinformation. In college I wrote a poem entitled "An Odd to Errata." which, in the second edition, included a slip of paper explaining "Odd" was supposed to be "Ode.") (You had to be there.)
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