Ruining a happy occasion with goal-setting
Coming as it does around in the fall when the days are getting shorter, I have often been quite depressed around my birthday, November 4. In recent years, though, mostly thanks to Lexapro enabling me to have a more optimistic outlook, I have been more inclined to look ahead on my birthday, making some resolutions for my personal new year. Here are some things I hope to do in my year after turning 53.
Photography
I have enjoyed taking photos with my Holga plastic camera such as the one above with the multiple exposures. So my goal for this year is to shoot and develop at least four rolls on my toy cameras. I also want to build a pinhole camera and get some images from that.
I also plan to publish a zine of my toy camera photos (see below).
Zines
I may yet write about my trip to the Pikes Peak Zine Fest in October. In past years I had a table and sold zines and prints, but this year I hadn’t made anything new. Before next October, I plan to produce a zine of my toy camera photos with short essays about each image.
I also have a decade-plus-long project I’d like to finally execute on the history of the future of libraries.
Music
Since finding the music of Brian Eno in high school I have been a fan of ambient music. This year I plan to choose a 20th or 21st century composer or musician each month and listen to enough of their work to feel like I have some understanding and recognition of their music. I’m starting this month with precursors Debussy and Satie.
Aside from ambient & art music, I would like to see more live music—let’s say four shows in the next year.
Chekhov
As a college theatre student, Chekhov was probably my favorite dramatist. In my costume design class I did designs for The Cherry Orchard. Since then, my imagination has been captivated by the films Vanya on 42nd Street and Drive My Car. This year I’m going to read all four of the major plays in at least one translation, and watch at least one production of each. My no-longer-secret hope is to set up a play reading group and eventually do a Vanya on 42nd Street-style staging or staged reading of The Cherry Orchard.
German
I have been watching a lot of German soccer this year and would like to learn some German. I’m not sure what the goal should be, though, which I know means I’m not very likely to keep to it. Perhaps ironically, one of the few German words I know already is tor or “goal,” though apparently not that kind of goal.
9 responses to “Happy birthday”
If you ever decide to set up a virtual play reading group and accept rank amateurs, please count me in.
(I used to read plays aloud with my grandmother—an actual theatre person—and loved it.)
Belated Happy Birthday! I meant to email you on your birthday, but got distracted by mental health wackiness. Funny thing, I have also been listening to more Debussy and Satie for the past few months.
We are setting a trend! Have you favorite recodings? I have been listening to Roge’s Satie since college and got the recent re-release of Satsuki Shibano’s recording on Bandcamp. I also just listened to some of Satie’s vocal works for the first time on “Satie: Socrate” by Barbara Hannigan and Reinbert de Leeuw. For Debussy I have a Boulez two-disc set of his orchestral music. I hope your mental health wackiness is subsiding.
Honestly, I’ve just been grabbing pieces on Spotify without paying attention to who played them. But I’ll start looking more.
Happy belated birthday, Steve.
Happy Birthday!
Chicago has recently had two excellent Chekhov productions. The Steppenwolf inaugurated a new theater space with “The Seagull” last year, then earlier this year Robert Falls directed a superb “Cherry Orchard” as his farewell from the post of Goodman Theater artistic director.
Thanks, Daniel! I had seen press about the Falls production, I guess when searching to figure out what translations I might want to read. I don’t think either production is available in streaming video, but I’m going to look harder.
Aw Dan, I just watched the Steppenwolf videos on their site and teared up a little that I didn’t follow through with the acting life.
…and Chris Donahue and Kate Fry in “Cherry Orchard.” Stick a fork in me.