FireVaney's

When you said, “Canada,” I immediately thought of the river. That garden where you left me. And then I thought of Tom Patterson Island. I thought of the time we stood on the bridge that stretched between Tom Patterson Island and the rest of Stratford, Ontario. We watched the swans and the couples in their paddle boats. We talked about the awful production of Romeo & Juliet we’d just seen. It was the second production of Romeo & Juliet I had seen at the festival inside of ten years, and both were simply dreadful. But they did know how to pull off Chekhov. Their mounting of Uncle Vanya was superb in every way imaginable. The performers truly brought out the play’s dark humor. It was cathartic. Also, their production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona : cathartic, first rate. You cried. I held you. It was wonderful. On that bridge, we kissed. That was where we first kissed. And then you said you were late for work at the Tango Cafe. Do you remember that lavish room upstairs at the M...

Pissing off the fourth floor balcony. That image left my head upon waking this morning. I couldn’t tell you why. Logic never figures into my dreams. Or when it does, it means I’ve gone lucid, and the dream shortly thereafter escapes me. But in the shower, “Pissing Off The Fourth Floor Balcony” seemed a worthy title for a stage play. I want my sort of theatre—my “brand” of theater—to shock. At least, I do right now. And you’ve got to be tasteless if you want to shock these days. Howard Stern shows us the way…  *  A spider’s spun another web between the ironwork that holds up the balcony’s railing. The gusty winds and torrential rains must’ve blown away the web it spun yesterday. Wont the sun show once over Stratford? Christ, writing about dreary weather is itself dreary.  *  Dust Blood —that’s the new title… of something.  *  You don’t see a lot of older couples loving each other. At least, I don’t. And by “loving,” I mean hugging and caressing in public, as...

We were flying to Canada. Pop was on the aisle. I sat in the middle. A young woman had the window seat. We didn’t know her. She was Israeli. Her English wasn’t perfect; my Hebrew was non-existent. We still managed to hold a decent conversation, she and I. She had an odd name—well, it was odd to me. It meant “tongue,” in Hebrew, I think. That’s what she told me, anyway. Why had her parents named her after an organ of the mouth? She was a babbling baby, or so she was told. Two younger girls from her group, perhaps sisters or cousins, were seated across the aisle, across from Pop. They spoke very little English. Aside from “Coke,” all they could say, apparently, was “You like her?” And, “You love her?” After repeating these question several times I confirmed that, yeah, sure why not? I liked this “Tongue.” She was polite and, seemingly, not nearly as chatty as she was as an infant. Surely she’d have more to say if I understood Hebrew. It’s a fair bet that I did most of the babbling. I wa...

There I am, not far from Niagara Falls, sitting on a park bench in a small Canadian town. A shallow pool with a spout of water is within leaping distance. As I am but a tourist here, I dare not leap.   The small birds of southern Canada — not all of them, but enough to take note of — flock around me, my two slices of fudge, and my mocha. None of these birds have a taste for the several crumbles of fudge I’ve flicked their way. That doesn’t stop them from homing in on my position. Admittedly, I am not entirely sure that I’ve enjoyed my fudge myself. This comes as something of a surprise.  (One slice, if you must know, is peanut butter chocolate fudge; the other’s cookies and cream fudge. Please don’t get me wrong, I love old-fashioned chocolate fudge, but at my age I’ve had more than my fair share of it. Nowadays I seek to add to my fudgy / fudge-ly / fudge-able palate and broaden my fudgy / fudge-ly / fudge-able horizons. And, please, my personal and very slight displeasure fo...