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Thursday, May 21, 2009

TELLING EACH OTHER LIES

Shelia Kay Adams came to see me yesterday. She brought a friend and when I verify her name, I'll come back and add it here. Shelia Kay and I have been performing together for about 25 year, going back to performances at the "green door" in Asheville (an old garage turned "performance center") and extending through over 100 elderhostels. In the interval both of us got stomped by life...what my grandfather called "being frailed against the wall." I guess a fitting analogy for our current status would be, that we are both "cracked plates;" folks need to put us down carefully.

We sat on the porch and told each other lies: a dozen unsolved murders (and who really did it.) We talked about Sy Kahn and "Aragon Mill," Don West and the Highlander Center in Tennessee, William Faulkner, buzzard hygeine (their defense against people who trap them is to puke on them), depression, suicide, gritted cornbread and Dolly Parton and Porter Waggoner singing "The Dark End of the Street." We are doing a show together this Saturday in Highlands and I believe we are both scheduled for the Kidder Cole Festival in Cashiers next week. It was good to see her. It gave me reason to look forward to tomorrow.

5 comments:

  1. Gary,

    I hope I'm finally on this blog. Not sure yet. Your life sounds like a dream to me, Gary. What's it like to live in beautiful Western NC and go to places like Highlands and Cashiers to work? Lucky one - that's you!

    See you in July,

    JudyCF

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  2. Dear Judy,
    I have got you snowed. However, western North Carolina is beautiful, and going to Highlands and Cashiers to tell stories is great, if you don't stay too long. I am blessed with an audience in Highlands. They have done my plays, "The Raindrop Waltz" and "Prince of Dark Corners." Then, they let me do "Blow the Tannery Whistle." In June they are going to host a production of "Nance Dude" which may be the last one since Elizabeth Westall is threatening to retire. Better see that one!

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  3. I'll get to see the two of you this weekend as I'm videotaping the whole event.

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