LETTER ONE

Two Letters
April 30, 2008
David Fennario, Playwright

What I was Really Thinking The Night I Went To See Tony Nardi’s Show

Do I dare not to go out on this evening of impending storm
blowing in a forecast of freezing rain and snow and
sidewalks potentially a slip and slide down into a cracked
hip or broken arm - all this in mind as I head out for the
Verdun 107 to take in Tony Nardi's show at the Moyse
haunted hall up the hill at McGill telling myself I'll see
myself when I get off at Sherbrooke stop if the campus is
too iced and snowed for me to navigate my walker with
trick wheel that now twists awkwardly up the middle of the
street past McGill bookstore on this dark but not yet stormy
night chill of frost and the weight of the past with my only
last candle flickering still alive although no longer sure
how much longer I can keep the focus required to keep
myself from just one slip and slide away from utter
catastrophe inching up an icy incline to the side door of the
Leacock building dream on design made by New Age
architects when they still had cutting edge glint in their
eyes of a utopian future but how dim the future broods now
in heavy concrete shade of neon and how come I never
noticed yes up there the decorative mobiles that have been
hanging for decades of Icarus in disattachment from his
wings falling with bland impassive face in predicted
predestined part of the curriculum with my memories no
longer there on the bulletin boards of socialist meetings
grim in unsmiling classrooms of going nowhere 1980's and
1990's in strange don't want to remember dead ending
corners oh oh oh but I’m still here still able to maneuver
whats left of me hunched over and under the shades and
shadows of Icarus falling on schedule to 1st floor marbled
sanctum of Art's building with doors open to the Moyse
Hall doomlike with sweetening scent of mouldering deceits
where lingering students escorted the crippling me tottering
up and down fall-of-the-house-of-usher auditorium stairs
katunk-katunk with walker making an ungraceful and
unwarranted and totally unacknowledged entry of yes we
know its you the artist formerly known as Dave Fennario
taking a back seat facing the closed curtain and podium and
small audience of proven prerequisites waiting to be told
what they already know with smug set lips and
indistinguishable non gendered eyes wide shut there not to
see a show rumoured to be a secret shocking exposee on
Canadian theatre by the artist known as Tony Nardi who
holds out a hand to me like I'm suppose to be in a rear view
mirror but now there in his way clothed in the truth of what
I'm hoping he will say behind that pornographic curtain on
the snickering stage in words that do slash and flash but
alack and alas for the wrong people in the wrong place for
reasons beyond reason..

But that's how it starts I tell myself after wishing Tony the
luck he doesn't need and tee-totter back out into a storm not
yet blowing in my face but oh yes I've already bet my
bottom dollar on that wild whirl of ill wind that blows
nobody but the nobodies any good

Good on you Tony