It's always nice to hear from old friends.
It's always nice to SEE old friends.
Today I could both of those VERY unexpectedly on my new HTC 4G phone when D.G. called me up on Skype and we had a video chat on my phone.
It was like a conversation straight out of The Jetsons. We were talking (well, I was...) on some electronic device the size of a Triscuit. I could walk around the room with him in my hand as we briefly caught up, shared intentions to get a beer together very soon, and...well...let him tell me how much he admired me in graduate school (he was an undergrad then), and has admired me ever since with all the stories he's heard of what I've been up to in the last few years.
Funny.
I've had all these people who keep coming up to me in the last few months telling me how much they admire me, or are jealous of me...and all I ever usually think is how far behind I feel in my life...like I haven't caught up to another runner in an ultra-marathon that I've been running since 2006. To tell the truth, I've always felt like I've been running that ultra-marathon...so...since...1980? Maybe I just don't know how good I've got it, or how much potential I have to make something happen...?
I always feel and think like what I'm doing is not enough. Not enough for what? Who knows...
D.G. seems to still think I'm the bee's knees. M.K. from Taffety also emailed me today to tell me he and the company are considering doing Oxygen...and wants to know what I'm doing during the next couple of months. I've been waiting for that email/correspondence of some kind for months. Now... I don't know what to do about that. Direct it? Act in it? What...?
D.G. believes in me. M.K. believes in my proposition. My students, as I found out before winter break, seem to believe in me. Maybe I can start to believe in myself... Maybe.
In other news, got out of "that house" today. Pat and Chairman Diem helped me move out of there today. Pat had the quote of the day as we were lugging out the last of my stuff from there:
"Bye, bye, Crazy House! Smelled like Cup O'Noodles and weed all the time."
Well...yes. It also did my head in to live there for the last month or so...especially since "the confession." I never felt safe, and am now living with P. and A. in their basement apartment. That works for the time being. I was able to organize that move quickly...and it was done in a day...all because of my new Jetsons-like phone.
The future is amazing.
Maybe Mr. Spacely will call me soon to offer me a job with Spacely Sprockets.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Christmas Mutant Powers
Everyday the principal of the school where I work sends an email to everyone in the faculty and staff with a "Question of The Day." The question two days ago was the following:
Tis the season to be gifting!
If you could give just one thing to your
students/faculty/peers/school
what would it be?
I don't normally respond to these questions for various reasons (the main one being that my office computer at the school is probably operating at the same speed of a Windows 98 computer and it's not worth the hassle of sitting around for 5 minutes trying to open a second email). However, seeing as it is the holiday season, and I was looking to avoid work, I thought I'd take the time to write a thoughtful response.
I would give them the Christmas miracle of Santa’s sleigh flying overhead…and having the sudden burst of energy from his reindeer taking off from the continental United States (in order to reach Europe in time for his Christmas Eve appointments) send out an electromagnetic pulse across the land that would wipe out all computer systems, electronic devices, and social networking websites (that one is for the kids), so we could all have a holiday free from appointments, stress, unwanted constant cell phone “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year” messages on our Blackberrys and smart phones (followed by the obligatory, “Why aren’t you responding?” messages…), and holiday TV advertisements that for some reason ALWAYS seem louder than the TV show I’m currently watching, or casually trying to ignore as background white noise as I try not to think of the gifts I forgot to get, or all of life’s responsibilities in general. Then, in the buzzing peace left in the wake of Santa’s fluctuating magnetic field, we would all remember the true meaning of Christmas: PEACE ON EARTH & GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN…and just one quiet moment to ourselves, or with our loved ones. AND, as an added fringe benefit, I bet the gamma rays left over from Santa’s sleigh’s explosion would give us magical Christmas mutant powers. Who wouldn’t want that?
I got a response back from someone in the mass chain who wanted to know if his/her Christmas mutant powers could include flying? I wrote the following response to that:
I’ll contact the North Pole’s envoy at the United Nations and see if he can get his country the freedom to develop an elf-run nuclear program without fear of diplomatic sanctions. Their scientists have told me they can install a portable nuclear reactor in Santa’s sleigh and it could be up-and-running by the end of the week. You should be flying by Boxing Day. Warning: I’m told the side effects include smelling of peppermint bark and leaving a red-and-white candy vapor trail everywhere you go when in flight.
With work properly avoided in the moments it took me to write those responses I think that all was put right with the world.
Merry Christmas everyone, and enjoy your new mutant powers!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
My Wat
Every so often I'm asked by a friend to work on a new independent project. Currently I'm reading (or trying to read, anyway...) Alexander Wat's My Century: The Odyssey of A Polish Intellectual, which was given to me by R.B. He also gave me a copy of Wat's Lucifier Unemployed, a collection of Wat's short stories. We're talking about possibly putting some sort of script, performance piece, or...whatever...together about these texts. Reading through My Century a few passages instantly connect with me about my artistic process, my life, and my thoughts in general about life lately. Considering it's so difficult to find the concentration to write lately, I thought maybe taking down someone else's words might set off a few sparks.
From the introduction by Wat's interviewer for the book, Czesław Miłosz, I found a few statements that seemed to be more about someone working on an artistic process rather than an intellectual statement of his life:
"It was not Wat's intention to be a chronicler of his centrury; what he sought was the secret, hidden meaning of events."
- p. xx
In the last few years especially I've become less concerned with addressing the implicit and inherent political statements out of various theatre pieces. I've come to appreciate writers like Samuel Beckett who wrote about such things as the "secret, hidden meaning of events." His writing doesn't seem to be tied to one particular political context, or way of thinking, and his dramatic writings seem to live somewhere out of time...in all times. If only I could achieve something like that with my work. My writing. My acting. Anything.
On living in a different culture Miłosz notes about Wat's experience in America:
"As of now at least, more good people are to be encountered in America than Europe. Theirs is, however, a somewhat seemingly careless goodness because there is a low level of psychological intensity in human exchanges here, both of the good and the bad. If Wat, a typical Central European intellectual, had expected debate, deference, an attentive and devoted audience, he was sadly mistaken. He soon realized that no one had the time for long conversations here, that everyone was on his own. You want to give a lecture, fine, give it. You want to write, write; you don't want to, so don't. All this creates an impression of indifference, of the individual vanishing into a landscape and masses of people, both of which dwarf him. This impression may often be mistaken ,but it can be depressing."
- p. xxi
I often feel this way, and I was born and raised in the Untied States. I can remember a graduate school professor, M.C., commenting that I "seemed to be carrying the weight of a thousand years of history" on my shoulders. It was in that same conversation, in that awful pizza joint across the street from Meadows School for The Arts, that he tried to reassure me about my inability to get along with some of my fellow classmates, or to make any sort of meaningful connections with them by saying, "You know, Mark, not every conversation, every social interaction in your life has to mean something deep...right?" Those are words I've tried to hold onto since then...especially since leaving school for the arena of the working world of theatre. There are more and more times when conversations seem like they're just skirting the surface of even superficiality...even with those who call themselves intellectuals. And those who don't...? Well, there's a sort of animosity that comes from anyone who perceives someone else as one...as if they're angry that they were denied some access to that knowledge. I find myself at times avoiding interactions with these types, but completely nixing them out of one's life does expose one to, like Wat, feelings of vanishing into the landscape and masses of people. However, the standards seem to have changed since Wat's day. Being an intellectual in his day, or his social group was defined by reading philosophy and intimately knowing the inner workings of a totalitarian regimes prison systems. Today, simply watching some other TV program than a reality show makes one a pseudo-intellectual. The intellectual bar has been lowered, but the feeling of isolation remains the same.
The following is a statement I think, if properly reworded, could help my theatre students understand something about their processes, but I'm not quite sure how to phrase it in a way that could help them:
"Stature is not easy to explain. It is not measured by what is called talent, because the talented are not always deserving of respect. Neither is it measured by intelligence itself, for various uses can be made of that faculty. Stature is like authority, and when granting it to someone, we do not doubt that we are giving that person any more than is deserved by nature."
- p. xxiii
Finally, for tonight at least, there is a statement directly made by Wat that was about the 20th century, but could be about today's general climate...about my general internal climate...
"I don't know if it was an advantage or a disadvantage, but we had begun to realize that the old had come to an end. Some absolute change had occurred and you had to make changes; it didn't matter how, what, to where, but you had to break things, change. ... First and foremost, there was a need, intellectual but emotional as well, for a total renewal, a feeling that some sort of earthquake had occurred, an absolute earthquake..."
- p. 4
That about says it for me.
Who knows if we'll end up creating that theatre piece. I need to finish hacking up a lung before I can deal with a creative process, or the earthquakes happening all around and within me lately. There's only so much thinking, or considering one can do when dealing with annual bout of bronchitis.
God my lungs hurt.
From the introduction by Wat's interviewer for the book, Czesław Miłosz, I found a few statements that seemed to be more about someone working on an artistic process rather than an intellectual statement of his life:
"It was not Wat's intention to be a chronicler of his centrury; what he sought was the secret, hidden meaning of events."
- p. xx
In the last few years especially I've become less concerned with addressing the implicit and inherent political statements out of various theatre pieces. I've come to appreciate writers like Samuel Beckett who wrote about such things as the "secret, hidden meaning of events." His writing doesn't seem to be tied to one particular political context, or way of thinking, and his dramatic writings seem to live somewhere out of time...in all times. If only I could achieve something like that with my work. My writing. My acting. Anything.
On living in a different culture Miłosz notes about Wat's experience in America:
"As of now at least, more good people are to be encountered in America than Europe. Theirs is, however, a somewhat seemingly careless goodness because there is a low level of psychological intensity in human exchanges here, both of the good and the bad. If Wat, a typical Central European intellectual, had expected debate, deference, an attentive and devoted audience, he was sadly mistaken. He soon realized that no one had the time for long conversations here, that everyone was on his own. You want to give a lecture, fine, give it. You want to write, write; you don't want to, so don't. All this creates an impression of indifference, of the individual vanishing into a landscape and masses of people, both of which dwarf him. This impression may often be mistaken ,but it can be depressing."
- p. xxi
I often feel this way, and I was born and raised in the Untied States. I can remember a graduate school professor, M.C., commenting that I "seemed to be carrying the weight of a thousand years of history" on my shoulders. It was in that same conversation, in that awful pizza joint across the street from Meadows School for The Arts, that he tried to reassure me about my inability to get along with some of my fellow classmates, or to make any sort of meaningful connections with them by saying, "You know, Mark, not every conversation, every social interaction in your life has to mean something deep...right?" Those are words I've tried to hold onto since then...especially since leaving school for the arena of the working world of theatre. There are more and more times when conversations seem like they're just skirting the surface of even superficiality...even with those who call themselves intellectuals. And those who don't...? Well, there's a sort of animosity that comes from anyone who perceives someone else as one...as if they're angry that they were denied some access to that knowledge. I find myself at times avoiding interactions with these types, but completely nixing them out of one's life does expose one to, like Wat, feelings of vanishing into the landscape and masses of people. However, the standards seem to have changed since Wat's day. Being an intellectual in his day, or his social group was defined by reading philosophy and intimately knowing the inner workings of a totalitarian regimes prison systems. Today, simply watching some other TV program than a reality show makes one a pseudo-intellectual. The intellectual bar has been lowered, but the feeling of isolation remains the same.
The following is a statement I think, if properly reworded, could help my theatre students understand something about their processes, but I'm not quite sure how to phrase it in a way that could help them:
"Stature is not easy to explain. It is not measured by what is called talent, because the talented are not always deserving of respect. Neither is it measured by intelligence itself, for various uses can be made of that faculty. Stature is like authority, and when granting it to someone, we do not doubt that we are giving that person any more than is deserved by nature."
- p. xxiii
Finally, for tonight at least, there is a statement directly made by Wat that was about the 20th century, but could be about today's general climate...about my general internal climate...
"I don't know if it was an advantage or a disadvantage, but we had begun to realize that the old had come to an end. Some absolute change had occurred and you had to make changes; it didn't matter how, what, to where, but you had to break things, change. ... First and foremost, there was a need, intellectual but emotional as well, for a total renewal, a feeling that some sort of earthquake had occurred, an absolute earthquake..."
- p. 4
That about says it for me.
Who knows if we'll end up creating that theatre piece. I need to finish hacking up a lung before I can deal with a creative process, or the earthquakes happening all around and within me lately. There's only so much thinking, or considering one can do when dealing with annual bout of bronchitis.
God my lungs hurt.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
A Man And His Hat
Long night.
Longer day.
I was rehearsing A MAN, HIS WIFE, AND HIS HAT by Lauren D. Yee the last few days in Washington DC at Theatre J with some really fine actors. Yet another process where I was absurdly racing back-and-forth between Baltimore and DC in my car...which I am convinced will either break down for good soon, or (for some reason or another) flip over somewhere on the highway leaving me hanging upside down by a seatbelt and having my final thoughts be, "Boy, I wish I had cleaned out my car so my mother would think I had, at last, become somewhat neater in my life. Ah crap. Here comes an 18 wheeler full of potatoes and olive oil." And there the end will be.
Nightmares of becoming a lame highway salad aside, the reading went well. It was performed at The Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, VA, a town that resembles some smaller squares in New York...if those squares had been put together by by corporate interior designers from Wal-Mart looking to entice the upper and upper-Middle classes to their digs. Anyway, it marked the first time that, after 4 years of friendship, I finally got to read/perform-at-all with the fine-and-talented TBR. She played my wife in the piece to my cranky-and-lazy-and-sloppy Slavic/Jewish Hetchman.
There's more to write about with this whole process, but noting the first night that I got to perform with a good friend is good enough for today.
The thoughts swimming around my head today about other things will take some more time to write about...and seeing as it's 1:15AM and I have to be up by 6AM (at the latest) this wouldn't be a wise train of thought to disembark. Best to leave that engine in the station...for now.
Longer day.
I was rehearsing A MAN, HIS WIFE, AND HIS HAT by Lauren D. Yee the last few days in Washington DC at Theatre J with some really fine actors. Yet another process where I was absurdly racing back-and-forth between Baltimore and DC in my car...which I am convinced will either break down for good soon, or (for some reason or another) flip over somewhere on the highway leaving me hanging upside down by a seatbelt and having my final thoughts be, "Boy, I wish I had cleaned out my car so my mother would think I had, at last, become somewhat neater in my life. Ah crap. Here comes an 18 wheeler full of potatoes and olive oil." And there the end will be.
Nightmares of becoming a lame highway salad aside, the reading went well. It was performed at The Greater Reston Arts Center in Reston, VA, a town that resembles some smaller squares in New York...if those squares had been put together by by corporate interior designers from Wal-Mart looking to entice the upper and upper-Middle classes to their digs. Anyway, it marked the first time that, after 4 years of friendship, I finally got to read/perform-at-all with the fine-and-talented TBR. She played my wife in the piece to my cranky-and-lazy-and-sloppy Slavic/Jewish Hetchman.
There's more to write about with this whole process, but noting the first night that I got to perform with a good friend is good enough for today.
The thoughts swimming around my head today about other things will take some more time to write about...and seeing as it's 1:15AM and I have to be up by 6AM (at the latest) this wouldn't be a wise train of thought to disembark. Best to leave that engine in the station...for now.
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