Santa Fe Art Institute
After the Hangar Playwrights Lab, I flew to San Diego and road-tripped out to Santa Fe with the theme of Ghost Towns and Dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the path I took was not fossil laden as I had hoped (further inspection of research material indicates a slightly more Northern route for such things). Ghost towns were plentiful but difficult to differentiate if caused by mine-busts or the current economy. When a furniture store is boarded up I have to assume the latter.
An inadvertent Ghost Town (or institution rather) that we came across was BIODOME II in Arizona. Built originally by guru with financier in tow in the 1970s, the Biodome was meant to test the feasibility of a self sustaining colony on Mars. The 8 people chosen to be locked inside for two years drove each other absolutely insane (to this day are divided into two grudge-holding camps) and couldn’t get enough calories. The plan was scrapped after 6 months, though “failure” is not a word in the Biodome docent vocabulary. The institution has changed hands multiple times since it’s inception for multiple purposes. More and more that purpose is quasi environmentally bent: deprive inside plants of oxygen or heat them up, watch them die, and thus provide further evidence of global warming.
The fact that the Biodome was originally built to escape our planet when we destroy it, and now is used to show how we are destroying it through a structure with intense energy consumption, seems ironic. If I knew the proper usage of that word. I overheard a docent saying the current funding runs out within the next 10 years. I think the biodome would make an excellent condo.
I arrived in Santa Fe at the Santa Fe Art Institute on August 7th, and will be here until September 19th. It’s a writers and artists colony and also a museum of sorts. The residents are given keys and pretty much given the run of the place. But because of its dual nature, it’s open to the public on weekdays. Sometimes people come through the studios and peer at my notes on the walls thinking I’m a visual artist.
I’m writing a new play and launching into some very exciting assists on plays for the regular UCSD season.
As of September 24th, I’ll be beginning my 2nd of three years as a Graduate MFA Playwriting student at UCSD. The 2nd year is purportedly the best: unlike the first year you have the lay of the land, and unlike the 3rd year you don’t have to worry about what comes next. It’s education perfectly distilled. I’ll also once again be attempting to impart knowledge, or at least a warped excitement for the medium, upon undergraduate students.
I’m mostly just happy to have a little more run up time to get used to the idea of academia. Last year I had just over two weeks to move out of New York, attend Burning Man, and move to San Diego. At least I know where the grocery store is this time around.