Every year for something like 15 years, Kansas City's Gorilla Theatre Company has staged Gorilla Greek, the performance of an ancient Greek play - alternating comedies and tragedies - at (or near) sunrise on (or near) the date of the summer solstice.I'm just enough of a pretentious egghead to think this is very cool. (This year's comedy "the Wasps" by Aristophanes is "a satiric look at the Athenian jury system" poking fun at their love of and addiction to litigation. Sound familiar?) I am also a life-long slugabed, which explains my lack of attendance since moving back to KC in 2003.
Some day I will go. But Saturday (opening morning, so to speak, for The Wasps) wasn't one of those days, although I was actually awake in time. In fact, we could see the back of the stage in Theiss Park as we drove past on Volker Blvd. But C and I were headed east on an errand of great personal significance: The free antifreeze, batteries, oil & paint (ABOP) drop-off at the Linwood Shopping Center, sponsored by our fair city.
When we moved into our house almost three years ago, we inherited in the process a collection of cans paint and satins and turpentine, some dating back I'm sure to the Reagan Administration. Apparently none of the previous owners could bear to haul them out of the basement and I can't really be that hard on them since we haven't managed it either. So the cans sat, their dented sides and bent lids staring at us glumly on any basement errand.
A few weeks back I read a post about the drop-off on Tony's Kansas City. For Tony it was fodder for a jab at Independence. Fair enough. But for me, it smelled like freedom. Freedom from glum can staring, which is a very particular and narrowly defined sort of freedom, but freedom all the same. It was also an important step in the unexpectedly long process of taking possession of the house and making it ours. I'mnew to home ownership, so this process still intrigues me.
So we got ourselves out of bed early and tossed our cans in the back of Fred Wickham (my truck) and headed toward 31st and Prospect. The drop-off was scheduled to start at 8 and when we got there at 7:55 there was already line spilling out of the parking lot. We snaked our way through and once the transfer was complete, a lady with a clipboard asked where I'd heard about it. The Internet, I said. She chuckled and shook her head.
It is a funny world sometimes.
A truck called Fred Wickham! Wow, sounds like a title for a new classic Greek play. Will you ever post a picture of it?
ReplyDeleteInteresting to learn that the Internet can lead to the end of oppressive glum can staring. I've had the problem before, but never knew the cure until now.
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