Tag: Jules Cunningham

Rehearsal Week!

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Yes, that exclamation point in the title is totally warranted, even if the permalink doesn’t think so.

Voyager is off to a great start— we’ve got our whole cast and crew here: Heather, Tony, Rachel, Carol, Isaiah, Maia… Plus the brilliant tech crew we can’t do without (as Beyoncé once said, “Who run the world? [Tech]!”). For the first time since my four-year-memory (the average lifespan of a high schooler), we’ve got all our Skits-I-Mean-Interludes finalized and roughly staged in the first day of theater rehearsals. We’re also aiming high this year, in that every CDub will have their pieces memorized for the show. I expect to just cruise (badum–CHING!) along this week, until Friday, our big show.

In the mean time, here are some pictures to keep y’all entertained:

Melodica-Alien and Jules Justus-Alien Hula/Macarena (?) girls Audience

[DR]: Onset of Fall

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by Jules (’14)

It’s no secret these days that it’s rapidly turning into autumn. It rained this saturday, I can’t wear just a tank top and a sportscoat at night anymore, and, perhaps most importantly, the Fall CW show is just around the corner. Today in Creative Writing we spent most of the period listening to theme ideas from Tony and Rachel and Carol (the person who gave birth to me, for anyone who didn’t know), our artistic directors. They took us through the various stages of David Bowie’s work as an example of an artist who has both gone through a very complete journey, and as an artist who works within in many different personas and genres. We then got to propose our own ideas for the show, which, like many matters of national security, will remain secret until it comes out of our proverbial oven, so to speak (to give a little food analogy retort to Midori who assumes I just never read the blog and so seeks to slander me with being an unpatriotic CW student).

Me in a Drawer

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by Jules Cunningham (’14)

Picture 94

I’ve tucked me into a drawer now
Empty harmonica cases only good for holding cigarettes
New pens
A ceramic ocarina that hits concert Ab and three-quarters
a metronome
muscle tape
a watch out of power for at least 5 years
2 broken notebooks
god knows how much loose change
I’ve tucked me into a drawer
so I can walk away for a while
pretend I’m made of pizza dough
an iphone
some stylish leather jacket
maybe even a saxophone or two
a few books of Classical literature
and an instruction manual
rather than 100 poetry and wicca and fantasy and comic books that I’ve kept and sold and bought again cause I couldn’t bear to see them running off with another lover
rather than an old typewriter
and a smelly blue bandanna
and if I keep me
locked up in a drawer
I can look around my room
and sooner or later I’ll see someone else littered across the carpet
someone stronger and clean-shaven and worth at least 100 20s
rather than
12 quarters
32 dimes
45 nickles
and 187 pennies
Someone who doesn’t find a vodka bottle
years old in his hiking gear
and if he does
he certainly doesn’t cry about it
and if I close my eyes
and don’t think about the me locked in the drawer
where no one can see
and where no one will look
I can open my eyes
believing that strong someone is me

(I Wanna Take You to a) Play (Bar)

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‘Aight, here are the long-awaited behind-the-scenes photos.

The Girl Who Cried Tortoise

Now there’s a guy that looks good on his hands and knees.

Mommy Hazel with Hammer Baby

Maxine and Johnny (and Jonathan)

Constructive Criticism

My Favorite Raccoon

Raccoon ft. Giorgia

Raccoon ft. Giorgia

Stay tuned for behind-the-scenes videos, for an in-depth look at CW’s creative process and waffles.

 

Big Brother Necklace

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You could’ve left me in the drawer
weighed down with wooden wolves and carved peace
signs
you could’ve let me lay by the bedside
my strings frayed
untying myself because I don’t know better
but you cut off my edges
tied a slipnot
and threaded your head through me
cause you feel naked now
without a noose round your neck
without me bumping against your collarbone like a
hammer on a rusty nail
You don’t take me off
except to shower and sleep
the 2 times when you’re not being a big brother
when you’re not drawn tight like piano wire
ready to hop on a bus at a phone call
with words made of thistledown
or fists made of wood
your teeth loaded
with buckshot or cottonballs
and you a shot or two or five cause you’ve got me round
your neck
cause you want a time where you aren’t worried
cause you want to be able to get a teary-eyed phone call
without seeing Katie’s grave in Technicolor
or hearing Ronnie
choking on anti-depressants
and for a few hours
you can’t answer your phone
you can’t run out the door and onto the 38
you can’t even be the life-sized teddy bear they need
and it’s bliss
that no-worries tunnel vision
but then you wake up with a hangover sitting on the
coffee table
and you run to the bathroom
and puke 7 times
you can still feel me tight on your neck
keeping time with your ragged heavy-eye breath
and you check your phone
for any missed calls


–Jules Cunningham

Taking A Walk

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by Jules (’14)

One of the things I have found extremely comforting in the recent weeks– with school getting more intense as everyone hurdles towards the springboard of senior year, with all the old people I know getting more or less fatally so– is forgetting everything, skipping out on homework and/or school itself to just walk. It’s one of the most profoundly satisfying feelings in the world, to be a machine operating at full capacity, taking in air and putting land behind you and looking at nothing in particular because you’re thinking of nothing in particular. Humans are built to get everywhere on foot, and in a world that is powered by gasoline and magnets it’s really easy to forget that 150 years ago everything was within walking distance. Even more satisfying than walking by one’s self is walking with another person, someone who you can talk to (but don’t have to), someone who you can communicate with through mostly hand gestures and inarticulate noises because the only thing better than hearing your own shoes crunch leaves or slap pavement is hearing somebody else’s keeping time.

It’s Like Sex (But BETTER!)

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by Jules (’14)

Left to right: Alex F., Dorian C., Bailey L., and Jules C.

The thing that I find really engaging about forming and leading a band is that it forces me into a leadership role that I wouldn’t otherwise be in, and I get to take the lead in a sort of communal ecstasy that not a lot of people get to experience. To hear someone playing a beat to your song, expanding on your vocal line, coming up with a bass part to your song, is a transcendental experience because even though I’m the one who brings the stuff to the table, we all get to tear into it and sometimes Dorian will tear off a really interesting drum solo, or Alex will just bake a badass bass line, or Bailey with take one of my vocal lines and cut it up into something completely different, and it becomes something we all get to share. To be able to play your own music, sing your own words, is something only writers get to do. The classical education in SOTA does teach theory, but only those people who want to apply it to creating something get to feel that collaborative ecstasy of having someone expand on something that’s yours. That’s really what The 28 Lifeline is all about. It may be my words and my chords, but I would never be able to sustain it by myself, and it certainly would not have the flavor and versatility it does without Dorian’s beats, Bailey’s voice, or Alex’s bass lines. For us, there’ll always be that moment when we look at each other after nailing a set list, and we just are all grinning because the thought is ‘That’s us. No one can do that but us.’ And that near post-orgasmic feeling is the reason we all do it.