Clown; Expired via Neglect

Vik Muniz

Artsy has more on ol' Vik ovah heeya...

Luminous Dispersion

Back at the start of December, before it was even properly winter, I wrote (see 12/4/08) about Friend Natalia's art installation in Brooklyn: Luminous Accumulation. It has been up all winter and, come Sunday, dismantlement shall begin. In other words -- last chance! Natalia sent out some lovely photographs of this exhibit in the snow as part of her notice of its approaching end . . .

Luminous Accumulation

Last night I travelled an unaccustomed route after leaving work. I took the F train from 34th Street all the way to Brooklyn, to the Carroll Street stop. I was surprised to discover that I had actually been in that neighborhood before, about a year-and-a-half ago. This happens to me fairly frequently in and around New York -- the sudden recognition of an environment when the maps and names of the area didn't necessarily ring any bells. I walked up Smith Street, enjoying the lights from dozens of nifty shops and restaurants and bars, then hung a left at Sackett and walked a long ways down that, over 278 by a short strip of bridging. When I got to Columbia Street, it took me a moment or two to identify what I had come that way for. Then I crossed the street and explored it, insofar as the chain-link fence surrounding it would allow.

It's pretty accurate to say that I am a huge fan of installation art, and an even huger fanatic about public installation art (i.e., installed in a largely uncontrolled, outdoor environment). I am lucky enough now to actually know an installation artist, and I hope she'll forgive me if that description limits her craft. Friend Natalia installed Luminous Accumulation on the corner of Columbia and Sackett a few weeks ago. I had intended to go to the opening, but it was rescheduled on account of weather to just out of my schedule's reach. Hence my solo journey to a dark corner of Kings on a Wednesday night.

I was disappointed, yet not surprised, to find the display fenced off but my mood was already pretty contemplative and buoyant due to the walk over. As is my wont, I read Natalia's description right away. As you can see, I brought my camera with me, and these two choices are related. Some appreciate art and, in particular, contemporary art, best through raw experience and an immediate moment. I envy this approach. It rarely works for me, outside of perhaps architecture and murals. No, I get the most out of these experiences when I'm working to synthesize my experience with the artist's intention. I find it similar to my impatience with classical music -- I loathe misinterpretation, even when an artist tells me such a thing is impossible. (And how much more impossible can it be to "misinterpret" than with the personal experience of music?) So I ask for answers straight off, and interpret the work through my own lens however I can thereafter.

Luminous Accumulation is interactive with the weather. There are a serious of pipes that ever-so-gradually draw precipitation and condensation into a roofed basin. The pipes, though you can;t tell it from my photos, extend their open ends out just past the borders of the chain-link fence, integrating it into their structure. They also reach back about fifteen yards to form rectangular arches of varying height that occupy the rest of the otherwise empty lot. The basin is lit around its rim and from two sources above it, and it is sheltered to ensure that the accumulation of moisture comes largely from the pipes. (Although the basin is also made of clear plastic, so I was immediately reminded of a wilderness survival contraption for gathering dew as drinkable water.) The more moisture that gathers, the more light that is reflected from it. (Rather ironic, then, that the original opening was postponed on account of rain.*) Natalia cites an Eskimo practice of holding reading material, or any object that requires scrutiny, close to the snow fall, the better to light one's discoveries.

It was frustrating not to be able to walk beneath the pipe arches, but only a little more frustrating than not being able to climb them -- they inspired that strong urge for me immediately, but never could have taken my weight, even if I could get to them. I have to imagine the ideal time at which to experience the exhibit would be a lightly rainy evening, just before dusk. You could (theoretically) walk beneath the pipes as they worked their gradual, inevitable work, toward the incrementally expanding pool, dipping your book/stone/lithograph into its light once there. It's a bit of a trip for me, but I may just do this some rainy night. I envy the people who get to experience this work on a semi-daily basis. Somebody has quietly transformed their environment for a few months, and it's an ongoing transformation. I think that's very valuable work, no matter how little monetary or pragmatic gain it results in. I want very much to be awakened to new perspectives on the every-day, and I can easily forget how much I want this. Thank goodness there are people interested in doing this for us. No one can sufficiently describe their interior experience of art. It's too personal. I hope it's enough to say that I spent some quiet moments with Luminous Accumulations, and felt pleasantly changed by the experience.

Well . . . maybe I'll just say one thing more. One of the best effects, in my humble opinion, a work of art can have is to invite us to carry its perspective with us into the world. We learn from it, in a sense, and carry it forward if not into our actions, then at least into our perceptions of everything else. This is part of the explanation for the genre of "performance art"; as with art, and unlike theatre, there is no definite end, no fallen curtain, to the experience, and it forces you to contemplate the possibility that the experience is simply continuing into the rest of your life. In this way, these things have a very far-reaching influence indeed. As I walked the good walk back to a subway station, I enjoyed immensely the details of illumination all along the way. Effects produced by headlights, streetlamps, windows, grates and foliage were all accentuated for me, and seemed somehow new. It was akin to the feeling I new best on my first trip to Italy, or my first to New York, and a feeling that I find has diminished slightly every time I add another visit and the longer I live here, like I lose it one slow drip at a time. It's a wonderful feeling.

*Perhaps it was apt, though; it must have filled the basin somewhat for the next day's appreciation.

Advent Horizon

I've paraphrased here before (oh, don't make me cite -- yes, I read my own copyright disclaimer -- yes, I'm a hypocrite -- I'm always a hypocrite on Mondays) this idea that my college art-history teacher was fond of putting forth: (art) history is not a progress. That is to say, it is a mistake to view history as a linear story of increasing knowledge, awareness and accomplishment. The veracity of Caravaggio's light is in no way superior to the Lascaux cave paintings, simply because of its skilled naturalistic composition, any more than Cubism was way better than Pop Art. Our tendency is often to observe human history as a linear progress, be it toward improvement or destruction, probably because this perspective is linked to how our minds work. Yet it is not only a limited view, when it comes to culture it's an incredibly inaccurate one. Take the Library of Alexandria, as a grandiose example. If we take the progressive, linear perspective, its destruction would suggest that some time just prior to the 8th century, the world took a huge step backward in information and culture. However, its destruction also vastly decentralized the accumulation of recorded human knowledge and increased the value of its recording, leading perhaps even more commerce of ideas. It's just as possible that we moved forward as a result, or in any three-dimensional direction. Culture is too complex a category to be judged by two dimensions in my opinion, even without the element of time getting involved.

Now, I'm getting dizzy from the heights of my academic aspirations here (and nervous that someone will quickly push me off for too much theorizing), so I'll just get to the topic I had in mind.

I'm still slugging away at Harold Lloyd: The Man on the Clock, and I've just gotten to the section in Harold's (in everyone's) history at which sound entered film-making. There are more misconceptions about this extremely sudden phase of movie-making history than can be summarized. It seems as though the entire industry just went ahead and freaked right the hell out over it before it had even begun, and so lots of the information we have from this period smacks of over-simplification, movie-mag exclamation and collaborative ass-covering. Perhaps the most common misconception, and one I subscribed to until I actually -- you know -- researched the topic, is that the famous comedians of the silent era mostly failed in sound because of vocal failings. For the longest time, I believed Buster Keaton had an awfully strong Bronx dialect that interfered with his "talkies." Not true. In character, and mostly in life, Buster had a very earnest, slightly dopey Midwestern American regionalism that actually served his deadpan expression awfully well. In spite of this obvious documented fact, not to mention his vaudeville upbringing (they talk in vaudeville, believe it or not), the myth of Buster's dialect is an irksome pervasion.

True, many film actors simply couldn't speak. Rugged cowboys had squeaky voices. Little darlings smoked five packs, unfiltered, per day. Yet if we have to summarize the cause of the upheaval of various actors' careers at this time, it would be more accurate to point to the bigger picture (pardon the pun) than the details. That is to say, with the advent of synchronized sound in movies, an entirely new form was created. We call them both "film," as though the material used to record these works was the defining feature, but it's a little like calling Picasso and van Gogh the same thing because they both put colors on flat surfaces.

Silent film had more in common with even dance and visual art than it did with talkies, then or now. Simply consider the fact that most major silent films were accompanied by live music. We tend to link silent film with film-in-general because we view movie-making as a progression, like technology, and because the two are similar in narrative devices. Even in this last commonality, however, the two are quite distinct. Silent films often suffered from too much story, whereas the bulk of popular American movies in the past 50 years have been largely driven by plot. It's a little difficult for modern audiences to grasp the idea of a "good" movie not necessarily relying on a "good" story, but in such a sceptical case, I point to two answers: a genre -- action movies -- and a specific film -- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

HOLD ON. I should have prefaced this by saying, beautiful as it is, I hate watching 2001. I usually spend the whole time thinking to myself, self, why did Kubrick have to give up on story-telling when he was so good at it? It is a mistake, in my opinion, to rule out individual movies simply because of a lack of story. 2001 has a great deal in common with silent film, and if you're committed to the ideal of film-making being a visual medium, well, there you go. In my humble opinion, where Kubrick went wrong was in effectively abandoning comedy at the same time he began abandoning traditional narrative structure. 'Cause he was incredibly funny, too, and the profound loss of the silent film is in its comedies.

That's not to discredit the melodramas, historical pieces and fantasy films of the period in any way. I just mourn the comedies more. What seemed to happen was that the industry got itself all a'twitter about the money to be made (and lost) over the advent of sound, and in the momentum of all that most everyone lost sight of the forest for all the trees; including the actors. Well, I shouldn't say "everyone." Some persisted in the original form. Chaplin made a well-received silent film after sound entered the picture (so to speak), and I'm reading about Lloyd's struggles to adapt, too. Apparently he was started on a film when everything started switching over and, when he saw people's reactions to the novelty of sound, Lloyd felt that he'd better try to adapt. He dubbed and re-cut the film, Welcome Danger, in response to the demand. Apparently, this film includes a sequence of minutes of black screen as the characters are heard stumbling around in the "dark." This was either a desperate incorporation of the new technology, or something of a wry joke on the audience. I prefer to believe the latter explanation.

The differences between a silent film and a movie with sound are too numerous to summarize in total. The general category of things I miss the most from silent comedy, though, is the sight gag. We still have visual jokes in movies today, but they work differently. Our stories have become so much about the written word that everything springs from its parameters. Instead of beginning with images or ideas, jokes begin with language and behavior. Behavior is, in fact, the dominant action in movies today. It quickly became automatically more sophisticated to build stories from words, and eventually that prejudice became so ingrained that we became embarrassed by our active past. Even the greatest actors of the past seemed crude to our "modern" sensibilities, telling us too much, insulting our intelligence, their actions speaking too loudly, so much louder than our words.

Many argue that it's just a change of taste, that what we have now is what we need now in terms of culture. Maybe so. Lord knows I have a biased affection for times gone by when it comes to visual art and -- to a lesser degree -- music as well. Maybe it's pointless for me to insist that silent films are still relevant, still interesting and affective, and that we lose something good by losing "the name of action." Maybe. Still. Watch Harold's young man struggling to climb a high-rise in the need for success; then we'll talk.

Happy Anniversary

My parents have a song for anniversaries; sort of like the "Happy Birthday" song. I have no idea if this gag originates with them or not, but I've never heard it anywhere else. The tune consists of them signing "happy anniversary" over and over again to the tune of the William Tell Overture. This may sound dumb, and it is, but it can also be highly entertaining when you hear someone try to articulate the quicker changes in the song, especially when you have to abandon the word "anniversary" for a couple of measures:

"Happy happy happy happy happy anniversary,
happy happy happy happy happy anniversary!"

Not just classy, but classic. I sing this song unto you, Aviary, on this, your day of inception.

In a year's time, Odin's Aviary has accomplished its modest part. I'm afraid I learned the ways of tracking visitor-ship somewhat late into its life, so can't be certain how those initial stages of growth fared in the world. Bearing this in mind, that the first few months don't even enter into it--some statistics (and mad gratitude to the gang over at statcounter.org):

• For roughly the year 2007, we've had 6,909 unique visitors, 4,476 of those being "first-timers," and the remainder returning visitors (variable results, determined by a cookie).


• April through June was the period of greatest popularity, but May has August as a neck-and-neck competitor for most page loads (most likely because I left town [and day-job desk] for Prohibitive Standards in August, vanishing from the 'blogosphere for a bit, and everyone went, "oh crap did he die?").


• We've had 9,810 page loads as of 10:41 AM today, since loading the Aviary onto Statcounter. This means we've probably technically already surpassed 10,000 loads, but come on people now! Smile on each other! Just keep refreshing the page 200 times before the 31st!


• Some of the more distant and exotic places that have dipped in to this here 'blog:
  4.80%
  Canada
  3.28%
  Hungary (friend of mine, I'm sure)
  3.06%
  United Kingdom
  1.09%
  Australia (circus folk?)
  0.66%
  India
  0.66%
  Finland (no earthly clue)
  0.66%
  United Arab Emirates
  0.44%
  Netherlands
  0.44%
  Philippines
  0.44%
  New Zealand (more circus riff-raf?)
  0.44%
  Nigeria
  0.22%
  Germany
  0.22%
  Norway
  0.22%
  Greece
  0.22%
  Uruguay
  0.22%
  Japan
  0.22%
  Ireland (friends of Patrick, I'm sure)
  0.22%
  Denmark
  0.22%
  Azerbaijan
  0.22%
  Slovenia
  0.22%
  Slovakia (0.22 must be the smallest figure Statcounter gets to)


• I'm bigger in Ontario than I am in Virginia. NoVa boys, what up? 703- represent!


• By a landslide (of tracking cookies, of course), the most popular entries were May 22, 2007, and July 10, 2007. However, judging simply by comments, the most popular (or controversial) entry, with a whopping 23 comments, was August 14, 2007, the famed Batman v. Wolverine entry. And they say art is dead . . .


• Some things people searched for on the interwebz that landed them (to their great dismay, I'm sure) in the Aviary:
  "When there's nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire..." (holy crap: so many search variations on these words--guess I wasn't the only one who was curious about their source)
  "When you can snatch the pebble from my hand..."
  busking workshops
  who the hell is brian dennehy
  travel italy gypsies
  improv soup uncommon theatre
  rilke on love and other difficulties
  'swonderful 'swonderful chips chips
  hits of the 90s


• The vast majority of visitors stay for under 5 seconds. Wow. I feel so violated.

It's been quite a year for yours (truly), and hardly a tenth of it has made it onto the log of this 'blog, I'm sure. Odin's Aviary is aligned to a purpose, or two, so I make a point of not getting into too much personal information on it. You can probably count the references to my family on one hand, and I knew, probably before I even knew what the 'blog would be about, that my love life would never ever enter into it. No, my mission statement, to journal the exploits of just one dude living what I termed The Third Life(TM), didn't justify that kind of public disclosure, and though the purposes have evolved through the year, I still would rather write about theatre, acting, comedy, anxiety and improvisation (apparently in that order). Maybe this journal isn't so much focused on The Third Life per se these days, but it can't help but be involved in it, as I am, every day. So even when I'm writing about Batman clearly being victorious over Wolverine in a fight, something of that has to do with the unique nature of a life lived for challenge and artistic expression.

Of course, too, one can't help but share a lot personally over a 'blog. Particularly when one's profession is as intricately personal as acting usually is. I've learned a lot about the pratfalls of sharing just a wee bit too much (pratfalls which are funny only in retrospect) in this format, as well as about how cumulative angst can overwhelm a reader when received all at once. Some people have been hurt that they weren't mentioned here. Others quite upset that they were, or just that I used their real names. It's been worth all the slip-ups, to me, at least. I feel like I've learned a lot through working in this medium. It's a little like therapy, or meditation, and like those venues, it can be overdone.

A few weeks ago I contemplated the decision to close the Aviary. This decision is tied in to the possible decision of switching my focus from trying to be a really, really, extraordinarily successful actor, to some other satisfying pursuit. That's not such a profound or unique thing as it may at first sound; like religion, I feel my career is only true to me if I choose it every day. Questioning keeps me in touch, keeps me fresh to the thing I'm questioning. It's a bitch most of the time, actually, but always worth it. In acting, there's a curious little habit of "bad" acting that I'm reminded of. Sometimes an actor will stop asking the questions in his or her lines. Whether it comes of memorizing the script by rote, or the monotony of rehearsal's repetitions, or simply knowing what the other character's answer will be, actors occasionally have to be reminded: Really ask the question. Well, I'm getting some different answers these days to the acting question, when I ask it, and mean it. It could be that change is on the horizon. It usually is.

But the change will not happen today. Or, perhaps it's happening already, but for today Odin's Aviary will live 10,000 visits more, and I will keep treading boards, slapping sticks and donning masks. Thank you, sincerely, for checking in on the progress from time to time. I love a friend-filled audience.

Transitory Art

Last evening I journeyed out to Greenpoint to complete a little cycle of destiny (see 12/7/07 for my feelings about destiny [actually, I make a fine and utterly personal distinction between "fate" and "destiny," but that's for another time]), braving freezing winds and the G Train under the strong urge to bring closure to an experiment I didn't set in motion. I'll begin from the beginning.

In late October of last year--when this here 'blog weren't even a twinkle in my typing fingers--I was riding home on the subway one night when I looked up and saw something unusual adhered to the wall across the way from me. It looked about the right proportions to be a postcard, which is of itself not unusual. Before I ever knew a soul in New York, I used to use a sort of guerrilla advertising technique for my shows, propping a postcard for said shows up on every train I rode. (As I made friends, they would tell me they had spotted my littering advertisements on different trains, which is when I knew it was time to stop and just give the things to my friends.) I did not originate this notion. People do it all the time, often with business cards purporting to hold the secret to incredible weight loss and/or increased income from the comfort of your own home. This particular "card," however, looked like nothing more (nor less) than an abstract painting in miniature. Intrigued, I approached it for a closer look.

I was spot-on about its essential nature. There, mounted on fibreglass (which, in turn, was mounted by Velcro to the subway wall) was a miniature oil painting in sworls of red and eggshell. Attached to it was a slip of paper that invited me to take it. With a half a moment of hesitation behind me, the Velcro made its tell-tale sound as I pocketed the painting.

The next day at work, I mentioned my find to a coworker who comes in once a week to balance my boss's books. I knew she was a visual artist, and might appreciate this little project. "That's my friend Lori!" she informed me. Indeed, on the back of the painting was a website for one Lori Hayes, artist, and a note encouraging whomever found the painting to visit and tell the story of their discovery. So I did, making certain to include the strange coincidence of working in the same office as a friend of this artist. Lori got back to me, thanking me and marvelling at the synchronicity. She also informed me that she was hoping to, one day, have a showing of all the found pieces, and would be in touch to ask me if I could loan out #90 (of 100), "River," for that event. I told her that I would of course be thrilled.

I love this kind of interactive creation. Maybe it's just the actor in me, but this kind of project feels to me like the kind of gentle, subtle performance art that builds community. Friend Patrick did something similar not too long ago with his Traveling Muse project. He constructed three masks, paired them with a journal and access to a 'blog and distributed them to myself and Friends Melissa and Kate, with instructions to keep the mask for a month and then pass it along. The idea is (and Patrick will I'm sure correct me if I'm inaccurate) to create something and send it on a journey of influence over different people, with the chance to even track some of that influence, or inspiration. (Oddly enough, Patrick began his project on the Autumnal Equinox, and Lori's spanned from the Summer Solstice to the Winter.) The elements of chance and personal interaction are great inclusions in any work of art. I still occasionally make a paper frog out of whatever postcard I've been handed and leave it conspicuous on a subway seat, just out of that urge to start something with a stranger. Rainer Maria Rilke offered an interesting observation on artistic satisfaction. He said the mother is the only completely fulfilled artist, accomplishing exactly what every artist dreams of: she creates something out of her own being, which goes on to exist in the world completely apart from her.

Last night, approximately a year from the end of Lori's cycle of placing sections of one giant painting on subway cars, she gathered what pieces she may and had a showing of them, as well as the original canvas from which they'd been cut, xeroxed copies of her journal and emails from various recipients, and photographs of each piece in its subway setting before it was taken. Out of one hundred, only four pieces returned to their maker for the night, and of those, only one had its new owner accompany it. I felt pretty conspicuous there, essentially a stranger, but one everyone there suddenly knew as having been a part of the experiment.

In spite of any self-consciousness (suddenly that term doesn't sound negative to me) there were also profound feelings of completion, inclusion and awareness. It reminded me of playing some street games a little over a year ago, the way they made me look at everything without taking any of it for granted. Those can be rare feelings in life in general, in this city in particular. I take great hope from the fact that Art is one of the things that can evoke them.

James Thierrée

Don't get your fingers in a cramp from Googling and Wikipediating the name. He is Charlie Chaplin's grandson. He deserves to be regarded in his own right. He has been performing in circus since he was four years old. I have finally seen him perform with his company, in their show Au Revoir Parapluie (Goodbye Umbrella). The company performed at BAM's Harvey Theatre. The last time I was in this theatre was a few years ago, close to when it had just opened. I was stilting in the lobby with Cirque Boom as a sort of warm-up to their contribution to The Lysistrata Project, which was a national initiative begun to protest the war in Iraq. As I took my seat for Au Revoir Parapluie, along with Friends Kate, Patrick, Dave & Zoe, I considered how long it had been since I worked with them all, how long it had been since I performed in a circus show.

Then I watched the show, which made my lungs laugh, my heart burst and my spleen evaporate. Plus it tickled.

Oh guys, guys guys: I can't spend the whole entry raving, but I could. There was so much about the show that I found personally appealing that I actually didn't notice the lack of concrete narrative, which usually irritates me when I attend circus/theatre. It reminded me of good classical music, the way it transports me so that my free association and emotions provide me with my own story. Circus performed with seeming ease, pathos and humor allows one to relax in that just-right way, a way that makes an audience receivers more than interpreters. The older one gets, the more their critical faculty takes over their personality, because they have more and more comparisons available. Great art, in any medium, allows us to happily (gratefully) release that faculty.

So this isn't a critique of the show. I was too inspired by it to be objective, and anyway it's sold out this time around (as opposed to closed, which is what most shows are by the time I get around to my opinion of them). No, all I'm saying, party peoples, is that capital-a Art still exists, and the French probably have more of it than we do. (Stupid French [it's a joke, Sara].) Plus (see, you knew that wasn't all I was saying), I am very inspired to make my own pale, incomparable imitation-of-style piece based on the show.

There was just so much to it that I want to be doing in my own work, yet am not. I've always been a fan of direct-address that breaks the fourth wall in one way or another (though I remain ambivalent about the Brechtian convention of "breaking character" to speak with the audeince, when in fact you're still speaking lines someone else wrote). Au Revoir Parapluie did this with action and clown, but no actor-spoken dialogue. It was completely sincere, yet transported the audience with music and surreal imagery. The performers were all capable of circus feats, yet also strong clowns and actors, sensitive and expressive and subtle. There was nothing pretentious to the show, even when I was amazed by it. Joy without guilt, catharsis without lingering sorrow.

When I was a young man, fresh out of my first professional theatre experience, I was driving around the southern states with my girlfriend of the time (Friend Rachel this was, for those of you keeping score at home) and whilst we mused on our performance futures I fantasized about a company of actors trained in dance, and vice versa, who would create brilliantly sincere and physical debut shows. I was going to call it Sugarsweet Willpower, which proves, as though nothing else ever did, that there's a good reason a lot of our youthful ambitions never come to fruition. This was prior to my even contemplating the worlds of circus or commedia dell'arte, and obviously I wasn't well-versed in theatre companies already at work on similar goals. No, I felt this idea was unique and timely, as well as of course feeling fully qualified to found just such an institution.

Ah, me.

It may be a bit gauche at this point, starting my own theatre group. It's kind of what all my comrades do. "Oh, Jeff started a company now? Yeah. Neat. So . . . how 'bout them Mets?" It's not something I'm interested in doing, at least not from a practical standpoint. I've seen too much of the "Artistic Director" process to be fooled by the name, and anyway, where would I find a Producing Director I could work with? (Who are these people? What makes them sign up for all the sucky parts? It ain't the pay, I'll tell you that much.) No, no company-birthing for this persnickity mother. What I might do, given the right circumstances, is make a show.

I say "might," because of these three entries, from which not much has yet arisen. I'm chomping at the bit to express myself, but not tearing up the track, and I feel as though the gate has been open a long time now. I hope this show was the poke in the rump I apparently need. I'm keeping it alive in my mind, replaying moments and recording my own ideas. It's interesting to me that I have so many outlets for creative expression, yet feel somehow that there's something personal, important and specific I have yet to express in my work. I want Zuppa shows to hang from the ceiling. I want Kirkos to craft another comedy. I want UnCommon Cause to improvise in performance (more). The most direct answer to all of these wants is to just do it myself.

Just as soon as the holy daze is over . . .

ITALIA: June 21, 2007

Imagine, if you will, a strange land full of trickery and delight. Delight, that is, if you were reading about it or watching some fetching cartoon about it. Today we went down the rabbit hole, we went through the looking glass, people. And I’m here to tell you, messiah-like, that living it is not nearly as enjoyable as witnessing it happen to other people.

Given all the good fortune we’ve experienced in Italy thus far, it seems only apt that there’d be one day of payback, and we have only ourselves to blame. Babel-like, we set our sights too high. Looking back, we have named it il Giorno del Circolo, because we simply could not escape circles--directional, mental and traffic. The day started with trying to drive a memorized local route to Firenze. After about an hour of confusing signage and increasingly rural roads, we found ourselves on what had to have been one of the highest mountain cities in Umbria, Allarona. We stopped to take in an amazing expanse and ask for directions. Turns out we had driven a good hour around a gigantic, rural circle, to find ourselves only 20 klicks from Orvieto once again. So we returned to Orvieto (with some further difficulty, I might add) to get our bearings and decided to head out to Firenze on the autostrada (uninitiated Americani, read: “interstate”). Of course, we had planned to stop in an intermediate town for lunch, but the hour was late and after a little under an hour on the autostrada David suggested we stop at one of the pull-off stations for eats. It’s tough to get lost when you go nowhere, after all.

And boy, are the service stations off the autostrada nowhere. It was bizarrely uplifting cum depressing to see this side of Italy, or perhaps greater Europe. It told me that the pervasive (invasive) culture of convenience is not limited to America’s purple-mountained majesty. The whole establishment was hoisted above the autostrada, so you could be rocked to dreamy consumption by the coastal sounds of cars topping out at 100 mph. It was the most expensive and least satisfying meal I’ve ever had in Italy, though it still beat anything I could have gotten in such an establishment in my native land. So there’s hope yet for Italia. After this strange meal, it was back on the road.

But now for a town called Arrezzo, which none of us had been to before. We decided we were so behind, and perhaps we didn’t have the courage and stamina at that point to take on Firenze. Arrezzo is one of the towns we looked into as having theatre festivals when we were applying for grants to travel here, so it seemed logical that we might find an interesting environment there. Off we went, little aware of what we were in for.

Arrezzo is a town I think I might enjoy under other circumstances. It’s fairly small, but big enough to hold a lot of history and contemporary entertainments. It felt a bit like a university town, with some 3,000 years of history behind it. We dove in and visited the largest park and a giant cathedral, but quickly had to get back to the car as we could only pay for a couple of hours of parking at a time (circles). On our second trip we wound our way around until we finally found an exhibit of Piero della Francesca in a local museum. A famous renaissance artist, he lived in the town for some time. Oddly enough, most of his extant work is in frescoes…the which you can’t exactly export to museums. So, though it was very well done, the exhibit was something of a tease. Thereafter David suggested we find dinner in Fiesole, a neighboring town of Firenze. (I think he was generally disappointed with Arrezzo.) Feeling at least somewhat successful with having found the exhibit, we agreed, hoping it would fulfill some of our Firenze jones. The bells of the church whose lot we parked in heralded us out of town as we headed out in the car…once again.

Fiesole was quite easy to find, in spite of some anxiety owing to signage on the way. I bought a road map of all of Italy at the service station (How’s that for an investment in the future?), so we at least had some perspective on where we were headed this time. It is a town on a high hill (mountain?) to the northeast of Firenze, with a beautiful view of the city. We had a very lavish dinner—with complementary champagne, of all things—at an outdoor restaurant with a view of the city below, a place David had had dinner at ten years prior. The dinner rejuvenated us so that we felt empowered to seek out a great gelato place David remembered from the same era, in Firenze.

Mistake.

We had ourselves quite a little drive around the city, ensnared continually by traffic circles with little-to-no indication of where we wished to end up. I suppose we spent the better part of an hour trying to locate the general area we hoped to inhabit, with no success. We just couldn’t catch a break, so we eventually just tried to find the autostrada again, which led us to some very interesting parts of town. Heather: “Is she for sale?” Jeff: “I think so.” Two blocks later eliminated all doubt, as a bevy of scantily (or non) clad roadside stress-relievers dotted our periphery. In case your needs should ever lay in such a direction whilst in Florence, head to where the buses park between routes. It’s like a supermarket over there.

I took over the driving once we got going on some local roads out of town. It was nearing 1:00 AM at this point, and eventually I found the autostrada near Siena, and eventually we coursed our way into our driveway, at just about 3:00 AM. Where did we go wrong (apart from, directionally, ever which way)? That’s a tale for another time. For now, we’ll just put this day to rest.

ITALIA: June 20, 2007

Okay: I was a bit hasty when I encouraged you to avoid thinking of Bevagna’s “Medieval Festival” as though it were an American “Renaissance Festival.” The similarities are, in fact, quite arresting. The only distinctions appear to be that 1) The Medieval Festival is taking place in a town of the appropriate age, and 2) A Renaissance Festival includes dragon puppets and magic satchels and things of this nature. In all other things the two resemble one another quite closely. This town has even erected some pseudo-historical structures constructed from cast fiberglass and molded polystyrene, the ethos behind which we have been scratching our heads about all the live-long day.

It has been a long day. So long, in fact, that by 5:00 we had had enough and David rented us a room in a nunnery ("get thee to"), and we had a nap. It was well worth it. Prior to that, the day started at 6:30 in the morning in order to try to arrive in Bevagna on time to meet Andrea and Natsuko when they got there. The drive was intense—almost two hours, and full of the most winding roads I’ve ever driven on. I’m pretty certain there were a couple of times there when we traveled back in time a little, the road curled back on itself so impossibly. We split the drive with a quick stop for breakfast and a walk in Todi. We didn’t stay long. My impression is that the city is built on a spire. You walk steeply uphill to its center, and jog in a sort of controlled fall to get back to where you parked. When we got through all that, we didn’t land in Bevagna until 11:00ish.

When we met up with Andrea and Natsuko in the central piazza, we all five promptly headed off to a bar for l’acqua and caffe. It was an incredibly hot day, just getting warmed up. When we could justify sitting under umbrellas no more, we headed off to visit with one of Andrea’s friends who was also working in his quarter. The “Medieval Festival,” it seems, actually dates back to the time it honors. Bevagna is divided into four quarters known as gaiti, or gates, which refers to the town having essentially four walls, each with its own entrance. Back in the day, the gaiti were fiercely competitive. Each had there own church, their own laws, etcetera. It got so territorial at times that the gaiti would put up chains across their borders, and anyone caught on the wrong side would be killed. (Suddenly Romeo & Juliet becomes credible in a whole new way.) The festival continues in this tradition with—we hope—less bloodshed, by forming itself as a competition in authenticity and entertainment between the four quarters. Andrea’s role in all this was to a play a sort of wandering clown for Gaite Sant Giorgio.

His friend whom first we met is a painter of icons and frescoes. This was an amazing visit. We went into the workshop he had set up for the event, and it’s hard to imagine anything more genuine. I couldn’t stop taking pictures. Essentially, he gave us the full tour and lecture on his technique, hours before he would be expected to do it for the public. From color making to charcoal graphing to gold leafing, it was fascinating. I couldn’t even understand a fifth of what the guy was actually saying, and it was still fascinating.

Afterwards we all went to lunch together in the main courtyard of Sant Giorgio, where later that night the quarter’s feats would be held. Sheets were hung at intervals, over tables still stacked atop with their benches, and we met other performers and artisans of the gaite who were there for their midday meal. And, essentially, we were served a full Italian meal with wine amidst really charming and interesting people…for free. Guests of Andrea. This is the least of what we owe this man. It was a marvelous meal. After that we followed the man in charge of running the coin-stamping site into his cool basement workshop, were he minted each of us a medieval Perugian coin. Then Andrea walked us around the town to visit the other quarters, the outlet for the town’s water supply and one of the churches. Finally it was time for him to prepare for the evening at his digs in the quarter’s nunnery. (Get thee to one, go!) This was when our fatigue drove us to rent rooms there, and we napped until past 7:00.

When we woke, famished, the evening’s festivities were just getting under way. David couldn’t wait for one of the feasts to squelch his hunger, and we weren’t in a hurry to disagree (though I admit I might have waited for the experience) so we dove into the only open restaurant we could find in town. While there, Andrea found us, and whilst in character. He had donned a medieval tunic and accentuated it with his customary (and costume-ry) props, like a helmet and the collapsible sword I used for a scythe in our clown piece, and an ashtray breastplate, and was wearing a Pantalone mask. He was wildly funny, carousing with every person in reach like a drunken soldier on holiday. We agreed to meet up later for a drink, and we were off to the central piazza again to people-watch during passagiata. Everyone was out to impress that night, from packs of pre-teen boys to elderly couples walking hand-in-hand. We agreed that the festival was really just an excuse for a super-passagiata.

After wine with Andrea and Natsuko David decided he was feeling spry and we left our monastical digs to drive the two hours back to the agriturismo. I was asleep before we got out of Toscana. The love of this country wears me right out.

Rainer Shines

Tonight's rehearsal was hard for me. We were working (amongst other things) on the final scene, during which my character spends about 5/6ths of the scene unconscious and shivering on a couch. On the last two pages, however, he has to suddenly experience all the pain and want of his journey . . . possibly also whilst hallucinating. Specifically, Frankie learns he is losing the person he loves most in the world, in spite of doing everything he could to help that person and make things right. Sounds hard enough, but I seem also to have a block about that particular set of emotions, or with the journey it takes to get to them. Or both. So there was much frustrated conference between the director and my person, and finally I got something of what it should be, and then on the final run I failed to access it again. This is the process.

Today, too, I decided to search for a nice quote for a card I have to write. I turned to Rilke, my favorite poet, and specifically to a book of his prose and poetry entitled "Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties," translated and evaluated by John J.L. Mood.

The book has an interesting story. Well, my copy does. Well . . . it's at least interesting to me.

It was published in 1975. The book is unique in form: unique font (Linotype Caledonia), unique dedication and "epilogue" pages and a surprising sampling of words from throughout Rilke's life of dedication to poetry. It's an orange paperback, with one of those designs on the cover that makes one say to oneself, "Ah. Late-sixties, early-seventies." It apparently cost $3.95 in its day.

But I'm not interested, Jeff!

Well, I didn't buy this book, nor was it bought for me. In 1999, the year I graduated from college, my parents began the move from my hometown in Northern Virginia to where my mother's church is, in Hagerstown, Maryland. Immediately prior to graduation, I helped (with Friend Mark) move my entire childhood home into storage. After I returned from my summerstock gig in Ohio, I shacked up with my dad in his temporary apartment in NoVa. See, my parent's new home was being constructed, and there were problems. In the meantime, my dad continued to work in NoVa and my mom had her apartment in Maryland. So, for a time, none of the Willses were living together (my sister was in her second year at college in Blacksburg).

It was a strange time. I wanted to get to New York, but didn't have any money. I was beginning my career as a professional actor, but was waiting to hear about work. (Eventually, I would be hired by The National Children's Theatre in Minneapolis--a whole other story.) I didn't really want the work, though. Mostly I was motivated to it because my home was gone, and I sort of wanted to be in New York, where my girlfriend at the time was. If I had settled in my childhood home--if my parents hadn't moved, and I wasn't forced to stay on a cot in my father's apartment--I might not have felt sufficient motivation to move the hell on.

My father's apartment was small, and the laundry facilities were shared in a room off of the lobby. I can't remember if it was when I arrived there, or after I had been there for some time, but this is where the book came from. The laundry room. My father found it, and my dad is wonderful, but not commonly noted for his attention to personal detail; yet somehow he saw this book and remembered Rilke as someone I cared about. So he ganked it for me. It meant a lot to me. It still does.

But I'm still not interested, Jeff!

Well. The final facet of this particular book is that it was a gift at one time, from a certain "Brad" to a certain "Jennifer." (No; not those. Definitely predated them.) In the front of the book is a hand-written dedication in black ballpoint pen:

"Jennifer, with whom
I am learning the difficulty
of love.
-Brad"

The dedication was written for Valentine's Day, 1977, which happens to be the year of my birth. I have no fondness for Valentine's day (see 2/14/07), but knowing this was a gift between two people in an intimate relationship means something to me.

But it's funny, too. Jennifer (I presume) has gone on to mark up the book. And not just with dog ear-ing, but in blue ballpoint pen. She underlines, she writes occasional notes in the margin. And, in a climax of irony, she inscribes a large-written "Bradley!" next to this particular section:

"In his uncertainty each becomes more and more unjust toward the other; they who wanted to do each other good are now handling one another in an imperious and intolerant manner, and in the struggle somehow to get out of their untenable and unbearable state of confusion, they commit the greatest fault that can happen to human relationships: they become impatient."
Emphasis added (by "Jennifer").

In this section, Rilke is writing specifically about the errors made by the young in love. He argues that love can not be won and deserved until those involved are mature enough to appreciate that it is work, it is ultimately difficult, and that such is the true value of it. I think Rilke might have suffered from similar psychic afflictions as I do, which is to say, "Rainer, get over it. Not everything must be a struggle." But he also has a solid point.

The purpose of this 'blog is not to write about love, but life and art. None of these can really be separated, however. I love this book, and the journey it's had, its glories and its blaring imperfections. And I love the way life is a story of the same kind of strange and often untraceable--but always extant--connections between people and times.

I am Surrounded by Babies

And they are adorable. Though they do, at present, remind me of a Dane Cook routine regarding unpleasant sounds and child abuse. So hopefully nobody will squeak a marker against the paper or rub two pieces of packing styrofoam together in my proximity any time soon, because the likelihood of my being around or about a baby is high. In fact, when visiting with the Younces (see 3/11/07a) I was offered the newborn to hold, and I replied nay. Twice. Was it because I feared harming the baby? Perhaps, but I also feel there was a part of me saying in response to such an offer: No thank you; I'd rather not sample exactly what I'm missing just now.

Fatherhood, I expect, is one of those things that one can--at best--imagine they're ready for. And such dreamers are invariably wrong on some level. So, in essence, it's a leap-and-the-net-will-be-there sort of endeavor. I'm accustomed to that manner of feat, and in concept it holds less fear for me than it once did. No man ever feels ready to be a father, yet we do it anyway. The miraculous thing to me about becoming a parent is the choice. There aren't too many significant things we can do in this life that we have so much choice about. Career success, as with many other forms of success, depends on degrees of fortune that are impossible to calculate. Love happens to you, if the mystics are to be believed, and usually when we change someone else's life in any way it's an accident. And yes, a couple can decide to have a family and fail for one reason or another, and children can be accidentally gestated . . . but that choice . . . that readiness--performed in whatever degree of ignorance it may--is miraculous.

I finally came to feel I was making some interesting, valuable choices in rehearsal for A Lie of the Mind last night. Naturally, these came faster and better when I felt I could let go of the need to make really effective choices. So there you are. Nevertheless, I don't feel it was solely my overall relaxation in the role that allowed the progression. In my opinion, it had just as much to do with the development of the group vibe between Daryl, Todd and I (I was only there for my first three scenes), and the deepened understanding about the family relationship between Jake and Frankie; and, indeed, family relationships in general.

Between runs of the first and third scenes of the play, in which it's just our characters on stage, the three of us got into several discussions about family that included personal anecdotes (a necessity to Todd's process, if I'm not mistaken). This is the sort of thing that usually makes me impatient, and feels like a waste of time. My philosophy is normally to get a play on its feet. That's where the truth is hiding. I'm not wrong about that (you bastards), but last night's discussions were as revelatory as our runs were, and I'm grateful for whatever allowed me to really be involved in them and not chomping at the blocking bit. I found understanding for why Frankie would continue to fight for Jake when he's clearly such a f*$@-up, who only makes Frankie's life more difficult. We got some specifics down about ages, and overall relationship shifts over time. Most importantly, I recognized both that I was the only one in the room who hadn't had the experience of having a brother, and that there were parallels between Frankie and Jake's relationship and that of mine and my sister's.

I should have had a brother. It's even possible that I should have had two, and that I would be the second-oldest of four, instead of the older of two. There has been, throughout my life, a weird sort of longing for those lost brothers, the result of which is seeking that relationship out in certain friends and trying to be the best freaking brother in the whole freaking world to my sister. I have only had moments of achieving that kind of celebrity in relation to Jenny, but I'm lucky enough to have a sister who recognizes those moments and remembers them. We've got what I would describe as a good relationship. It's gotten necessarily more complex as we've grown up, but the essential affection is still there and strong. I'd still jump in front of a train for her without thinking. She'd still tell me if she thought I were doing something dumb. Does, in fact. Every chance she gets.

This is the kind of borderline personal information that people are railing against the blogosphere over, claiming it's horrid narcissism and self immolation all in one. Yet I can't avoid it in this case, because my life is just that tied up in my work. I suspect everyone's is, really; it's just that actors make a point of exhibiting it on stage or screen, in agonizing detail. And, more to the point, exploring it without judgment. An actor is a scientist of his or her self, objectively observing his or her own reactions and paradigms of behavior, and using them to the benefit of a story. Even when we do things we'd never do in life, something within us responds to it. Otherwise, the effort is aborted before it ever has a chance to experience the empathy of an audience. Either it's true on stage and we identify with it on some level, or we don't identify, and the moment is instantly false.

The choice to create is a bold one. To make something out of one's self and set it out for the world at large is sort of everyone's dream, on some level or another. It's always a kind of miracle to do so, an encapsulation of the spirit that is responsible for our being here at all. Create and nurture art. Create and nurture a child. Create. Nurture.

The Invisible Man

No finsky for the quote today, only the gratification of knowing you're the grand prize winner.

"...I'm going to take back some of the things I've said about you. You've...you've earned it."

Some of you (three) may have felt I was a little harsh with the mediums of film and television a few entries back (1/29/2007). Let this entry serve as my apology for such slander. It's not that I find these mediums lacking in value. Rather, it is that they diverge from my priorities--and experience--to date, and I can't help but feel that they're overly popular. Something is lost if you never see the acting live, something important. But I want my MTV. I seriously worship movies. It's genetic. Next time I'm home I'm going to try to remember to photograph my Dad's DVD/video collection for you.

So today I suffered again from oversleeping (gad durn it, but how that bothers me) and commenced my breakfast over a viewing of "Of Human Bondage," the film adaptation of Somerset Maugham's awfully autobiographical novel of the same name, starring Leslie Howard and Bette Davis. It's the first Bette Davis film I've seen (Leslie Howard too, for that matter) and it's plain to me her appeal. There's one shot of her eyes over drinking a glass of champagne that suddenly made that damn song from the 80s make sense to me. The movie is pretty marvelous, but awfully dated, particularly in acting style. Actually, for the time it was probably naturalism bordering on the shocking (which is apt, given the subject matter [sex, obsession, poverty, modern medicine]) but now it reads rather stilted most of the time, particularly any time Phillip (Leslie) has a moment of reverie. I still recommend it highly; Maugham always delivers, and if you see it for no other reason, see it for Mildred's million-dollar freak out.

What was interesting for me was to start my day in this way, then venture off to NYU to work with their TV/film directing class on a short project. The set-up for today's work was very much like a soap opera set, with three cameras, all the technical roles filled by some 20+ students: the works. We began with a five-page scene that myself and two other actors had received about a week prior. There were no given circumstances for the scene, and very little contextual background. This was intentional, as part of the lesson for the class was about learning to work with actors (apparently a much-neglected aspect of direction in film schools). So we spent a good deal of time reading through and having table discussions before putting it on its feet. All-in-all, it was two hours of rehearsal before we actors broke in order for the class to confer about shot lists, etc. All we were aiming for today was different aspects of rehearsal; Tuesday we'll film.

So when we returned to the set, everyone was ready in their role. And I began to learn. My character makes a surprise entrance in the scene after about two pages of dialogue. As anyone who's worked on a film or TV set can tell you, that usually means at least a half hour before you'll get taped. Like something of a schmuck, I stood backstage to await my cue. Theatre instincts. (People kept offering me a chair out in the "audience," and didn't seem to understand why I wouldn't want to sit down.) There was a monitor back there, so I could watch the action on stage through a cut-out in the set wall, or one of the three shots they were working on. As I learned to watch the monitor instead of my fellow actors, I made a couple of observations.

It could be said that whereas theatre is constructed to celebrate profound moments, film (in this case meaning anything taped) is constructed to celebrate the intimate. This is an incredible generalization, and of course the intimate can be profound, and vice versa. But I was struck in particular today by the way a camera allows us closeness and angles of visual perception that we otherwise only have when we're in an intensely intimate relationship with someone. The scene we shot today began with a couple in bed, and as camera 3 kept a tight shot on the woman, she rolled to face her bedmate. On stage, it was a simple motion, unremarkable. On screen, however, I recognized it as a specific image I had only seen with people I had slept with (and, of course, in other films). We take it for granted, an aspect of contemporary storytelling, but it's an amazing thing.

The second observation I had to make today had to do with super powers. (You can take a geek out of the comic store....) I have a favorite hypothetical question. Actually, I have several:

• Trapped on a desert island with only a CD player for company, which 5 albums would you take?
• What deceased historical figure would you most want to share a lunch with?
• What animal would you most wish to be?

But the big one for fanboy #1 here is:

• Would you rather be able to fly, or to turn invisible at will?

Most people choose flying. It often descends to a discussion of practicalities (If you flew, you'd never escape public attention...invisibility would change your personality...what good is flying unless you're invulnerable, too...if you turn invisible, do you have to be naked...etc. ....) but the point is to understand why one appeals more than the other. Of course, everyone would like to have both. Well, you can't. Them's the breaks. Me, I choose invisibility. Don't get me wrong--I'd love to be able to fly (invulnerable or no) but I see such wonderful possibilities for invisibility. (And once again, I'm going to have to ask you all to remove your collective mind from the metaphoric gutter.) You'd be the ultimate ninja. You'd have information. You'd be able to taunt politicians and just go around miraculously rewarding the just and punishing the unjust. It. Would. Rule.

We're already experiencing it! That is exactly what film allows for. We're not just voyeurs at a glass wall; we're "invisible wo/men," getting just as close to the experience as if we were literally there. We go in for the kiss. We rock back from the hit. The only thing missing is the physical sensations, which in many cases our body is all-too-willing to supplant. We are the "invisible man" when we watch a film. What's more, particularly with contemporary visual short-hand, we're allowed the additional super powers of teleportation and slowing-down or speeding-up time. Film empowers us in this sense, giving us this sense both of investment in the actions of the story, and a subtle sense of control over it. Sure, we're along for the ride, someone else is driving, but we're used to that. It's called dreaming. Haven't you ever had a dream in which you saw everything going on, but couldn't intervene or didn't perhaps even exist in the same reality? Oh . . . no? Just me then? Awesome. Awesome . . .

I'm certain I'm not the first to suppose this connection, but I may be the first to parse it in such geeky terms. And of that, I am proud. I'm proud, too, to have made discoveries that reignite my excitement for the technological entertainment mediums. It seems to me now that when I consider film in these terms, it is a far-less-tapped mode of exploration and expression than I had imagined. I had an art history teacher in college who insisted that there was no progress in visual art (or perhaps he meant art in general); that artistry merely changed modes, never "improved" or in some way refined itself. Naturalism is not better than cave painting, cubism is not better than pointillism. I agree. Oedipus Rex, across centuries and translations and reinterpretations, can still work brilliantly as a play. Film is not an improvement on mediums for acting, nor a refinement. It simply suits our time more closely, and our time suits it (art:life::egg:chicken). What does that say about our time?

Maybe that we all want to be superheroes(tm).

"When you can snatch the pebble from my hand...

...then your training will be complete."

That is NOT the movie quote quiz of the day. The quiz for today's entry will follow the rest of the entry, and will be much, much harder. I mean, I'm getting fleeced here. And not in that nice Farmer Bill way; violently, fiscally fleeced.

It's true: I like adversity. You know what else? I'm one of those types (yes: THOSE TYPES) who can't be happy if he's just relaxing. Not really. I fling myself from project to project in a manic quest for continual stimulation. What can I say? That's how I roll. Some of you may have spent time with me in repose and not know what the hell I'm talking about. Well, I can sit still, but it doesn't take long before said sitting digresses into myopic depression for yours truly. Enjoyment of adversity + need for hustle-bustle = appreciation for invigorating challenges. As an old friend of mine once said, "You like to jump in the fire." Yes. It's warm in there, and people don't care as much about what you're wearing when it's ablaze. Mind you, I'm not saying I'm a Superman(tm)(r)(c) of this approach. I spend my times in the doldrums, and even in the fire it's pretty easy to get lost. But it's the way me likey.

Which brings us to the topic of today's entry:

The handstand.

Oh elusive handstand, how you taunt me so! You El Dorado of acro, you perpendicular pinnacle of achievement! Look at you, STANDING there, taunting me with your perfect, inverted equilibrium. I love you, you bastard, and though you may never requite my love, I will never stop chasing you. To the ends of the earth. I SHALL PURSUE YOU!

For many people, the handstand is a snap, and they have crushes on other, more glamorous acrobatic accomplishments, like standing back-tucks, or an aerial. I'm at peace to report that my meager aim is the good handstand. Some others may believe they have achieved a perfect handstand, and many have, but still many more do not grasp the aspects of so-called handstand perfection. I'm talking an aligned (no collapsed back or bent legs), elongated, stock-still handstand that I decide the eventual release of. That's what I'm talking about! That is the subject to which I am referring!

It's an interesting journey, trying to nail the acrobatic handstand, and--though the effect is simple--there are many factors that are at play in this simple pose. Starting out, you have to learn how to fall. You have to accept the idea of putting yourself in peril and learning from that, hopefully without serious injury. Gradually you learn how to land on your feet from all different directions of fall, which needs to happen, because otherwise you'd not survive these early trials. But then, you know what? You have to forget all you learned about catching yourself, else you spend all your practice time deftly doing just that and not increasing the time you can stay aligned. That interplay continually vacillates, but there are other considerations as well. Just finding perpendicular alignment whilst upside-down is a trick, and requires the development of all new sensory experience. Then there's pushing up off the floor with your shoulders, pointing your toes, and learning to use your fingers as though they were toes. Finally you begin to get these elements to at least play nice together, and quite by accident start to get really good at catching yourself with, and then walking on, your hands. Which is great, and all, but then you have to forget how to do that, or at least suspend it, lest you spend all your time deftly walking instead of sticking the blasted handstand!

Hopefully, life is like that. A continual vacillation between a variety of different choices until, at long last, one attains a more perfect equilibrium. Because, if so, I am AWESOME. Vacillating? I have got that DOWN. Now I just have to stick that damn handstand.

"Do you have Soul?"
"That all depends..."

Dare You to put Your Tongue against the Subway Track...

Breach of etiquette: I triple-dog dare you.

That's also the subject of today's movie-quote quiz. I paraphrase, of course, but if you know it there should be no problem winning today's finsky.

Polar Bear swim at The Pond! Last one in is a higher order of human being who doesn't succumb to the pack mentality when it could mean his or her ultimate peril!

Seriously: I want to cuddle with anything with a pulse, in front of a real fireplace, whilst drinking mulled wine and humming sea shanties. Instead, I am diligently returned to my day job and, like an early evolution of tiny mammal, merely overjoyed to be within a contained structure that has heated air being pumped through it. On my way up from the F train today I saw a homeless person laying out in the middle of the concourse floor, covered by a ratty comforter. Show me the police officer who would kick out such a person in such weather, and I will beat that officer mercilessly. Because violence solves problems. ( <--IRONY ) Today I had the opportunity to come into closer contact with Mona's clients than I normally do. In point of fact, I had not so much contact with her client, as with her client's soon-to-be-ex-spouse. (I think as long as I don't name names I can't be fired for this disclosure.) Yes, today I actually had to venture back out into the f'ing cold to serve a summons for divorce on someone. This is the third time, in four years of working for the same attorney, that I have been blessed with the honor of this particular sort of task. It was definitely the most pleasant of the three. The individual seemed very nice and was certainly cooperative. You don't get that a lot in the business of matrimonial law. It may seem cold to perform this task under any circumstances, but I like to think that when it falls to me to perform it I have the opportunity to at least make it as painless as possible, whereas when a service service (yeah--that's accurate) is made incumbent to the same thing it is of necessity professionally cruel. That's how I comfort myself. I have no real comfort to offer the people I meet in this role. Thanks to Neil Gaiman for suggesting (via his characterization of Death) that such a service is necessary and not necessarily vile. Just tough to accept.

An artist's life is invariably an interwoven mess of his or her personal, creative and professional lives (possibly best visualized by a Pollack painting). I'm not going to label myself an artist (leave that to the teeming masses) but I believe this metaphor extends to all those pursuing The Third Life (all rights reserved pending the apocalypse), and I sometimes wonder about the interrelationship between the elements of my particular pursuit. Today's task being a case in point, as is the fact that all my adult relationships to this point have been of necessity--to one extreme or another--long-distance ones. It doesn't exactly lend one an overwhelming confidence in one's ability to commit to and make work an ongoing relationship with someone, and I mean this both in the context of romantic entanglements as well as platonic ones.

Friend Patrick has made it something of his mission to remind me:

1. Stability is not necessarily contrary to The Third Life; and
2. Struggling ________s shouldn't fret over spending time/energy on things that simply make them happy.

For which I am eternally grateful. However, this encouragement has yet to make much of a dint in my wonderment over why the ol' personal life hasn't gone quite according to Hoyle. Not that I'm eager to attribute it to forces outside of my control or anything, but occasionally I have to wonder how best to make it work. And that's on good days. On bad days, I wonder if I've lost every chance for a long-term, meaningful relationship with someone by merit of prioritizing the career to the extent that I've had too many relationships fail not to have become jaded and absurd.

I try hard not to whine about it, but I am frustrated. The simple answer is, "Let go of the acting." You want a family, choose that and let the rest go. No dice, Cochise. I get about as far with that as I do on solving a Rubik's cube. It's not an option, and when I try to force that square peg into the round hole (minds: kindly remove yourselves from that gutter) it all goes to De Moines in a hand basket. Of course, there are varying degrees of compromise on this topic, and I've tried to explore them. Again: Rubik's cube. (I'm going to invent a "rubrics cube"; it can only be solved by speaking parenthetical advice at it until it suffers a system error from trying to process it all and catches fire, burning red until it's turned to slag...anyway...) Somehow I'm not yet ready to get a "real job" and practice community theatre, nor to apply to grad school and channel my creative energies into directing the senior class' production of Angels in America. Nor any of the other possibilities that spring to mind.

Yesterday I celebrated Friend Kira's thirtieth birthday with her. This March, the girl I moved to New York to be with is finally having her dream wedding. When I got out of college and was touring with children's theatre to save up enough money to move to this big city, I set my thirtieth year as the absolute, no-holds-barred decision date for hitting it, or quitting it, as regards pursuing a conventional family life. My thirtieth is impending, occurring in early June, at which time I will hopefully be in Italy, performing a clown piece in Piazza Navona. (Hear me, big G? For reals, yo.) So much has changed for me in the past seven years, I'm no longer assured that deadline was a good call. Nevertheless, it weighs on me occasionally. Okay: more than occasionally. RATHER FREQUENTLY. Yeah. That much.

I would like to go back and delete the last two paragraphs there. If you know me, it probably sounds like whining. If you don't know me, it probably sounds like relentless self-justification. Wait: Maybe it's the reverse. If you don't know . . . aw, to hell with it. It makes me vulnerable to admit that stuff, but come on. All you have to do is observe me for a short while for all of the above to be self-apparent. I'm not fooling anyone. Well, maybe Santa. Because I have yet to get just coal. Though I often wonder if generic electronics might not be today's equivalent.

What might be really hard to deal with is the fact that, of all my fantasies about how my life could go, which is my fantasy for this milestone of three decades? In Bocca al Lupo. Acting for spare change in a city in which I don't speak the native language. Not the fireplace. Not the Willsian progeny. Hat tricks and laughter in a piazza in Rome, which is really just a kind of New York with about two more millennia of history.

So there's no simple answer. Except, perhaps, to say that life is full of surprises. I figure if I can avoid choosing to apply my tongue to sub-zero-temperature alloys, then I'm still making reasonably intelligent decisions. So: I'll see you guys at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning at The Pond!