OUR 3RD FLOOR THEATER #revised

It's just below our living quarters on the 4th floor. The photos show you where my husband, John Cullum, is working on his one man show, reviewing the script he's written about his career and singing songs from shows he's starred in. Before he starts working, I'm at the barre, warming up before I start dancing.

Here's how the room looks when the black curtains that are on both walls are closed, the theater lights are on, and the 65 seats are arranged.

We use the space for staging shows, play readings, and raising funds to produce our theater projects. Over the years, a lot of very well-known people have been here for previews.

The floor space is 40 x 25. The sound equipment, designed by Bela Bartok's son, Peter, is powerful professional equipment which we've used in Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters. Our lighting equipment is homemade--we scrounged large tomato cans from neighborhood restaurants, converted them, and made tinfoil frames to hold the gels for each light. Our homemade dimmer board sits in the dressing rooms that are next to our two offices. Above my office is storage space for the costumes and props I used when I performed as soloist with symphony orchestras, and toured the world with my dance company.

In the center of the floor are the chairs and barre I use when I dance to "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis," by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Every day, I perform a four-minute section of this music.

HERE'S eUGENE ORMANY CONDUCTING ... AS YOU LISTEN you con't eee leaps, and pirouettes ...you'll just see dance Rmily  cu=isiting the room, rlatng to each proo--elating the chair with curiosity and tenderness recalling how it was use.d   
When I'm dancing to this music, you don't see typical dance steps such as leaps, pirouettes, and intricate footwork. Instead, dancer Em visits the room and discovers each prop--relating to each, with curiosity and tenderness, recalling how it was used.

You'[ll hear the As the music crescendos before the end of  "Fantasia," standing tall on the double set of chairs, dancer Em surveys the room. Then, swiftly, recapitulating the memories, triumphantly, I leave the room.

Dancing has been the major part of my life since I was ten-years-old. I dance like people who go to church--I just go into my studio, warm up at the barre, turn on the sound equipment, and the Vaughan Williams music begins.

The great Eugene Ormandy is conducting the music. As you listen, perhaps you'll understand how the music inspires me, gets me remembering, reliving, and dancing. 


It's marvelous to hear John. As I'm typing this I've been hearing songs from "Clear Day" and "Camelot," chuckling as John describes the day a stage manger called out, "You're next Mr. Cooolum," when he was auditioning for a show he didn't get.

NEED A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP?

As a poor sleeper, having gone off caffeine, tried over-the-counter remedies and doctors' prescriptions, melatonin, homeopathic remedies, warm milk, liquor, and counted sheep, l still have a hard time falling asleep. 

I mostly "fall" awake.  If you do, here's what I do!

My current routine: Tuck pillows under neck and knees, mutter Shakespeare words--"Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care," and repeat the words, concentrating on the left leg, sensing the flow of blood in 10 toes, ankle, calf, knee, thigh, hip joint before concentrating on the right leg. I repeat this 15 to 30 times till my mind rebels, and a loud awareness that I am wide awake drives me out of bed.

If you try this, and are still wide awake, get a snack. Watch TV, and try again later.

Other possibilities: There's Modafinil, a stimulant that Wall street-investors use. There's a relatively new process called transcranial direct stimulation (tDCS) that zaps the brain with electricity, and keeps people up for as much as 30 hours, but tDCS currently lasts six.

Dammit, I don't want to spend my work time, trying new things that might or not work. 

Doctors say the Internet, email, and social networking are giving us shots of dopamine, a chemical the brain releases to simulate pleasure. We get this from caffeine, and nowadays we're sold caffeine in toothbrushes, stockings, soap, bath bubbles, beer, marshmallows, lollipops, coke, red bull, and bottled water. So, don't drink coffee? Do drink it? Drink it less?

Golly, we're flashed a lot of facts--about coffee, saccharin, eggs, cholesterol, omega 3, belly fat, dental hygiene, bacteria, calories, carbs, exercise--most of this is in my BB pile (bullshit baloney), where many of the latest life and death important facts fade like smoke rings.

FACT: After a not-enough-sleep night, I do my work--how well I do it depends, not on sleep, but on whether or not the topic excites me.

Therefore, I do my "raveled sleeve" routine, and sing this to myself. If you sing this a few times and are still wide awake, get a snack. Then, if you sing it again, and again, and again, you'll pleasantly tire yourself/bore yourself to sleep.

(VIDEO) FEARS

Describing small, "eek" sort of fears, Emily wonders why things like bugs that scare her, don't seem to bother John Cullum. John says he does what has to be done, like a soldier, despite his fears.

Teasing John who is calm and collected, even on a big deal opening night of a big Broadway show, Emily deems him her "brave Knight."

OUR ENDLESS WAR

Why oh why are we stuck in a war for 17 years? I find myself asking questions others have asked, hunting for answers in Time, Week Magazine, Newsweek, even UK's The Guardian. 

We invaded in December 2001 to topple a Taliban govern-ment with a harsh form of Sunni Islam, that had given safe haven to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The population, about 20,500,000, is now around 36,700,000. The Afghan government controls the cities and about 60% of the county. Right now, the Taliban, with 40%, controls more territory than they have at any time since 2001, and are attacking and killing hundreds of Afghan soldiers and civilians.

How many U.S. troops are there?

When President Obama took office in 2009, 30,000 troops were there. He tripled the force hoping it would bring victory. In 2011 there were 100,000 U.S. troops. The Taliban waited in Pakistan till Obama gradually withdrew troops.
       President Trump, skeptical of the war, was persuaded by the Military to continue supporting the Afghan army and boosted our forces to 15,000. They are now on a mission, aided by Afghan forces, using armed drones and airstrikes. But 15,000 troops can't defeat the Taliban, and Afghan forces are collapsing. In 2016, nearly 7,000 Afghan soldiers and police were killed. Since then, the government stopped releasing figures.

What about the Taliban? They're believed to be 20,000 to 40,000 fighters, about the same as a decade ago. With an annual budget of $2 billion, they get funding from Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi sources, probably Russia, and also from their control of the lucrative international opium and hashish trades that employ 600,000 Afghans.
       New York Times said, "The Taliban are much better equipped than anti-government forces and Afghan security forces--they have more resources, and access to modern weapons."
       James Mattis, our Defense Secretary, has been negotiating, but the Taliban are rejecting our terms, refusing to renounce violence, break ties with al Qaeda, accept the protection of women's rights in the Afghan constitution, and negotiate directly with the Afghan government.

So why don't we just pull out? The Afghan government would fall. Afghanistan would again become a Taliban-ruled medieval society, and al Qaeda and ISIS would have free rein there to plan and carry out attacks on the U.S. In 2011, when the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, it led to civil war and the rise of ISIS. Top experts believe that negotiating with the Taliban is the only way to end the conflict, but negotiations involve agreements with India, China, Russia, Iran, and most of all, Pakistan, who won't negotiate.

Why is Pakistan so important? We rely on Pakistani land and airspace to supply our troops, but the Pakistani military also allows the Afghan Taliban to retreat into its territory. Pakistan's new prime minister, Imran Khan, a fierce critic of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, wants us to negotiate with the Pakistani Taliban. The head of the U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, says, "Now is the time for them to step forward." It hasn't been happening.

The horrendous cost:  $4 trillion, but approximately 2,400 U.S. service personnel have been killed in the Afghan war, more than 20,000 wounded--if you add in the future costs of the war veterans and their health care, and the interest on the money borrowed to finance the war, the figure approaches $8 trillion.
     Much of this money was wasted. Our special inspector for Afghanistan reconstruction told the Senate, "The United States threw itself into reconstruction with haste and hubris, with untested assumptions, unrealistic expectations, with piles of cash and tight deadlines for spending it too fast, with too little oversight."

By 2014, $109 billion had been spent on reconstruction alone, more in today's dollars than the entire Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe. Even so, Afghanistan still lacks adequate roads, schools, and infrastructure. Our country still spends $45 billion a year on Afghan security and economic aid, more than double Afghanistan's GDP.

All I can do is post this, and pray for bigger protests.