Scarlet the Wiener Dog strikes again!

I have wiener dogs who looove to eat facial tissues and toilet paper. I am not sure where/how they cultivated this singular passion, but it’s gotten to the point where in our house we cannot leave facial tissue boxes lying around within wiener dog lunging reach. (Scarlet the Wiener Dog has figured out how to pull tissues out of the box).

Fairly recently, Scarlet the Wiener Dog discovered the phenomenon of Infinite Toilet Paper!!! INFINITE! TOILET! PAPER!!! (aka: the toilet paper roll).

It only took her 18 years to figure that one out, but we are simultaneously dismayed and amused. Mostly amused.

Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? My old dog has been learning a lot of new tricks lately: the toilet paper dispenser, and staring at herself in mirrors.

This morning, I discovered a toilet paper roll on the floor, behind the toilet bowl. Huh. Weird.

I picked it up, noticing the gnawed-upon roll. Very curious.

Scarlet the Wiener Dog cracks me up. I hope she makes you laugh, too.

Sleep No More: Novel Writing

Sleep No More, as described by The New York Times, is “‘Macbeth’ in a hotel,” because it’s kind of a play kind of performance art kind of voyeurism kind of spectator sport but not really any of the above. Which is why the NY Times calls it “‘Macbeth’ in a hotel”–the vaguest of monikers.

And yes, it has a little to do with Macbeth. But not really. Kind of.

The hotel in question is called “The McKittrick Hotel” built out of the ruins of three abandoned Chelsea warehouses (it’s not really a hotel, and never was a hotel, so again, kind of but not really).

Sleep No More is fiction down to the studs in which the audience spectators roam without agenda or direction. In which spectators are as much the performance as the actors; at one point, I looked around the room and wondered if the actors saw us in the same way we saw them, as we stood in masks that hid facial expressions.That they were our mirrors as we were unto them.

For the first hour, I roamed confused and alone and dismayed and frustrated and frightened, fighting every impulse to tear off my mask and leave. I didn’t really “get it” and felt very lost, just as one might feel when invited to a large, sprawling, ghostly, hotel all alone. But not really alone. Because you’re surrounded by other ghostly masks.

But then–a character rushed by, followed by a handful of white-masked spectators. I followed. Her hands bloodied, she attempt to wash them; ah, Lady MacBeth.

It was then I had a character to which I could be devoted. To follow. To be my proxy for the landscape. My curiosity intensified, and my fear receded. I followed the character through all manner of darkness to the end. A character can be a very effective tour guide.

My Sleep No More experience was not very different from my creative process. I understand that everyone’s experience is unique and based on the solitary–the performance is designed to that end, the masks making it so that people have a hard time reuniting within the space, the darkness making it so people cannot see each other. Together, but alone. Kind of.

Sleep No More:
I’m led through a winding tunnel void of light–some people feel their way through–and in my case, I yelped and a member of SNM’s staff walked me through, my hand on his elbow. Thinking I was going to DIE. Thinking no one told me about this darkness. Thinking what had I gotten myself into. Thinking hell no. Thinking I had to do this.

Novel-writing:
Darkness, (not so) coincidentally is a state that I associate with my creative process, and the source of my inspiration. It is discombobulating. It’s frightening. Terrifying. Like falling. Like dying.