Blinking Open Again…

In the Sumerian myth, when the goddess Inanna descends to visit her sister the Queen of the Underworld, she passes through seven gates. Each opening is so narrow that she must strip off a piece of her finery. Through loss, she reaches her destiny.

In other myths, you utter the magic word to open the gate to the treasure. But our own passages—whether personally or in the history of our infernal bride The Independent Eye—have been more like Inanna’s, scraping away all certainty to face an unknown future. When she passes the final gate, her challenges have only begun.

But gates do lead forward. Often, for us, we have only a hazy map scribbled on the shirttail of a dream. We seldom know where we’re going until we’ve arrived, and then we discover we’ve arrived at another gate.

Welcome, then, to our next passage.

Finally reaching the age of consent—70 and 72 respectively—we’re returning to our roots. Forty years ago we left college teaching in search of an audience and a connection with audience that was more authentic, more direct, and more fruitful than what the subscription-season model could provide. That brought us into cross-country touring in every conceivable theatrical style, into public radio, into puppetry, even back to the subscription-season model a couple of times. We’ve put down deep roots, then pulled’em up, usually at about seven-year intervals.

You can’t step into the same river twice, you can’t go home again, you can’t always get what you want…

But when we were growing up, the movies showed continuous double features. If you sat there long enough, even if you came in in the middle of the film, you could see it again. “This is where we came in,” we’d say, and at that point leave. For us now, this is where we came in … but we’re going to watch the rest of the film because—take a look!—it’s never the same twice.

We’re going back on tour. Back to non-theatre spaces. Back to word-of-mouth promotion. Back to the days of cheap or free seats. We’re going back to telling stories with no more than a couple of suitcases full of props and enough light to be seen by.

This newsletter is part of the journey, so are our YouTube videos, our DVDs and our books. And so too do we hope to be around about in the flesh, across the country, soon.

Peace & joy—
Conrad & Elizabeth

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Host Us—

Are you in the Bay Area? Southern Cal? Pacific Northwest? Southwest?

Do you have a favorite bookstore, gallery, coffee house, arts center or social group, or just a living room large enough to cram in at least fifteen friends and the two of us?

From February thru May 2012, we’re looking to tour the West Coast with readings of our memoir Co-Creation: Fifty Years in the Making, the saga of our 50 years as mates and artistic partners. The readings are really performances, and we’ve had tremendous response.

It’s free—of course we’ll hope to sell enough books to pay for the gas—and we ask hosts only for a place to crash overnight, help with contacts and promo if it’s public, or just inviting your friends if it’s a private gathering. Refreshments as you desire—we encourage BYO.

Interested? Email to explore further. We promise a rich adventure.

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Quote of the month…

From Elizabeth in Co-Creation...

We made art, we made kids, we made a life, and in a very real sense we made each other. I was a very wobbly first draft of myself in the fall of 1960, all edge and no center, and it was a miracle to fall head over heels in love with someone whose creativity was unstoppable. He became not only my lover, he became my gyroscope and my work list. I was too busy to fall apart very often or for very long, and as the years went on I found I’d been growing a soul while I wasn’t watching.