Guest Post @ Fighting Monkey Press

The first of two guest posts I'll be writing over at Pavarti Tyler's Fighting Monkey Press went up last Friday. If'n you haven't already, please hit up Pav's site to reward yourself for knowing someone who knows someone as awesome as she. My post is to do with religion, so you can visit to start and/or join a flame-war while you're at it! An excerpt, whetting your spiritual palate:

"...[I]t should come as small surprise that so many of us define ourselves by distinction and exclusion. It’s almost a self-explanatory notion – one reads the word 'distinction,' and the definition begs a synonym of identification. Yet they aren’t the same thing. My favorite color is blue, because my favorite color is not yellow. Even logically, that sentence doesn’t compute. The distinction is not the reason, nor the causation.

"Yet we hasten to describe and define our religion by what we don’t believe."

BatFan Fiction Submission: Shadow On the Wall

Found here.

And we have our first Middle Eastern Batman story (see 9/21/10 for context)!  We have another in the queue as well, which we'll hopefully submit to you, Dear Reader, sometime next week.  So get on your submission already!  Remember, it can be a bare-bones, two sentence concept left in the comments of the original post, or can be emailed and more elaborate.

Here we've got a fascinating and rather researched take on the idea, replete with a linguistic pun or two.  Pavarti posted this over at her 'blog before I had a chance to here.  Please read and enjoy, and heap praise upon her.  Without further ado...


Shadow on the Wall by Pavarti

Recai Osman awoke slowly, consciousness flickering in and out. The unforgiving sun beat down on his bruised and exhausted body.

Where am I? His mind struggled to remember the last twenty four hours.

Gritty particles of sand moved sympathetically as he slowly rolled onto his side, pain shooting through his head as the light hit his closed lids...the sun greeting him with cruel intensity. Sand clung to his long lashes and hair, and as soon as the disorientation passed Recai brushed it off roughly with his sand-infested hands; particles so fine they had filled his shoes around the spaces his foot filled and ground into his scalp between each follicle of hair.

Finally Recai was able to sit up and look around. The night before was still a blur. He remembered the bar at Bozooğulları Hotel and drinking with a Kurdish woman who had reminded him of his mother. Her eyes were deep set and so dark they might have genuinely been black, but it was the mischievous glint and the sound of the language his mother spoke when they were alone that drew him in. Her veil had been tight around her hairline but pulled back away from her shoulders so that he could see the neckline of her dress clearly.

Pinching his brows together he sat, his head spinning with a hangover and dehydration. How had he gotten out here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sand and grit? He could only hope that the dunes around him were the ones that resided to the south of the city and not some further, larger wasteland.

He didn't remember leaving the bar, or traveling at all. There were rumors of nomads kidnapping, robbing and deserting bodies in the desert, but he would remember if he'd been kidnapped. Instead all he remembered was drinking bourbon while admiring the curve of the mysterious woman's collar bone, which showed seductively above her blouse.

The Dunes just outside of Elih, Turkey were not large, but it was easy to get disoriented and lost in amongst the shifting terrain. If he was lucky he'd have awoken when it was still dark and could have followed the light of the city toward home, but now, with the blazing sun above him, luck was something he just didn't have.

Man didn't last long in the dunes without water and supplies. If he had a canteen and some salt tablets Recai was resourceful enough he would have been able to survive without food or shelter for a few days, but like this.... He shook his head, sending streams of sand onto the ground around him; those kinds of thoughts weren't going to help him get home.

Recai blinked back his confusion, finding it difficult to clear his mind. The sun and lack of water was starting to affect him already and the temperature was still rising. Recai took off his shoes and socks, knowing that despite the burning sand, this terrain was best traveled the way his ancestors had; he needed to feel the earth below him, listen to the sand as it fell away from his steps.

He undid his belt and jacket making a satchel to carry anything he needed. His pockets had been emptied and he was as penniless as a wandering Roma come to find their next fortune. Soon he had his designer button-up shirt tied up on his head like a Jain turban and his worldly possessions hanging from his belt over his shoulder.

The scruff of his unshaven face protected him slightly from the sun and the turban kept him somewhat shaded. Recai took in his surroundings and the placement of the sun and set off in the direction he hoped was north.

Recai walked for what seemed like miles, resisting the instinct to second-guess his direction. The sand moved between his toes but soon he found his footing and his body responded to the landscape like it was a genetic memory. He remembered his father's words from a trip to the Oman desert when he was a child: never take your shoes off; the sand will eat away at your feet. But Recai had done it anyway then and now, feeling more in control with that connection to the ground, its movements speaking to his flesh directly.

He was in the middle, every direction would lead out. Either to Elih or one of the smaller villages that were scattered around the city. But who out here would take in a stranger? A stranger with a Hugo Boss turban and a bruised and bloodied face. Insha'Allah, he would be delivered to safety.

The sun was high overhead, beating down so that no living thing dared venture out into the desert. If Recai had a tarp or blanket or...anything, he would have dug himself a hole and conserved his strength until night. But instead at the crest of the next dune he sat on his bundle, keeping his body away from the sand so that it didn't suck the remaining moisture from his system, and looked out before him.

From his vantage point he could see the crescent shape the wind had carved in the sand below him. Recai's face was wind burned and his shoulders were screaming from the assault of the sun's rays, but still, the city was out of range, all human life well past the line of the horizon.

Standing up the ground shifted softly again, making Recai think of the last time he had been on his family's Yacht. He used to love going out there as a child, taking the helm from his father when far enough out there wasn't risk of him accidental steering them into a shallow section of the River. Elih was landlocked. This city where his father had made his fortune and helped build a sophisticated Arab beacon for the rest of the Middle East, a place where Turks and Kurds co-existed peacefully. A private jet would fly him and his parents out to Iskandarūn where the boat was stored.

He hadn't been to Iskandarūn in years. Not since his parents had died. Not since they'd been murdered. Not since Elih had fallen into the hands of Mayor Mahmet Yılmaz and his PKK henchmen. Terrorists hiding behind the thin veil of faith. It made Recai sick to his stomach the way the city was falling apart; devolving into crime and ignorance, but there was nothing he could do. He simply was not his father.

Walking along the crest of the dune, hoping to find a way down that didn't involve sliding down the great sand wall, likely creating an avalanche that could bury him alive, Recai felt a rumble in his chest, like a vibration that was surrounding him, calling to him from the air itself. The pitch rose as the noise intensified, now a screaming growl like the Jinn's song. The dunes were collapsing.

Recai began running, hoping to keep ahead of the avalanche he had caused, which was forcing the sand to move against itself with such strength it was singing in protest. The physics of the phenomenon were the last thing on Recai's mind though, because in this moment, the most important thing was to not be caught beneath the cascades of sand that were reshaping the landscape of the dune.

Dropping the satchel that held the last remnants of his modern life Recai scrambled across the crest, unable to get completely away from the avalanche. The dune song crescendoed and he could feel the sand pulling him down, drifting out from beneath his feet as he tried to push off against it in flight. With a scream Recai lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees just as the top of the dune fell out from beneath him, sending him rolling with the sand. He was now not just the instigator of the disaster but part of it, swimming within the sea of sand that carried him away.

* * *

A hand twitched in the sand before Hasad Sofaer. He looked down at it from his perch atop his camel without much concern. Unfortunately it wasn't unusual to find body parts out here in the dead lands of the dunes. What was curious was that this one had garnered the interest of the great beast of burden he was riding upon. No one survived long out here alone and the PKK had taken to leaving living, and dead, people to disappear into the sand.

The PKK, Hasad spat at the ground, wasting precious moisture to solidify his curse. Once again the beauty of the desert had been defiled by those bastards. Hasad's camel twitched and lowered its nose to the severed hand, but instead of pushing it over in the sand to reveal the rotting stump the camel felt the hand close around it; startling the animal and Hasad.

The old man jumped down from his perch and stared at the wiggling hand, wondering what kind of devil had animated a dead thing. Was this how the world would end? Was this the day the Golems come to avenge their wrongs? Hasad was not a superstitious man but he had been raised in a tight community of Baghdadi Jews and when the impossible appeared before him, the stories of his youth had more credibility than ever before.

The hand began clawing at the sand, trying to push it away. The sight pulled Hasad out of his thoughts and inspired him to action. Kneeling down next to the hand he began digging in the sand, his camel snorting and spitting behind him, as if sensing an evil rising. This could be a man, a man left to die; Hasad could not sit back and allow such a thing to happen if he had the power to stop it. His God and his soul demanded it. Too many had died out here already.

Still digging, following along the hand's arm he found another hand which grasped on to his forearm. Leaning back against his heels he pulled against the hole which was quickly filling back in. Pulling hard enough that he could feel his old joints protest, his feet slipped out from under him as a head came free.

The face looking up at him from the sand was sun-burnt and bruised. It looked like there was blood matted in his hair but it was hard to tell with the sand clinging to him. Hasad lay on his stomach and reached out his hand to the man who was taking ragged shallow breaths, having literally just fought for his life.

"Beyefendi?" Hasad called, sliding toward him, trying to disturb as little sand as possible, while getting an upsetting amount of it down the front of his own shirt.

"Yarmetî," the man whispered before his head slumped against the sand, his neck going limp. The beginnings of a red beard and the language Hasad didn't understand but recognized sent off warning signs. The old man knew that for a Kurd to end up out here alone, he was either very dangerous or very stupid.

Cursing quietly under his breath the old Jew slid away from the man and retrieved a rope from his camel, tying one end of it to the harness the beast wore. The smell of the creature had long ago stopped bothering him, but he still had no affection for it. The other end of the rope he tied into a noose and hooked around the man's arms, as low as he could get it, and tightened the noose so that the arms were brought together at an angry angle behind the stranger's head.

Hasad sighed and shook his head.  Better a dislocated shoulder or two than dying out here alone. With that he slapped the camel on the backside and set to pulling Recai Osman out of the sand.

Useless Beauty (All This)

Great song. I'm not a huge Elvis Costello fan, but every so often one of his songs hits it out of the park for me, and this would be one of those. Friend Heather, who is a much better devotee of Costello, introduced me to it. I'm not sure if I've ever discussed this here, but songs rarely resonate for me based on their lyrics. This is a thing that drives some people (such as Wife Megan) a little crazy, but I can't really help it. Or, I don't want to. I like being better attuned to the song than I am to the lyrics. I don't have a whole lot of clear, intuitive behavior that doesn't get second-guessed by my intellect (such as it is) -- I'm keeping this one. This is all just to say that words to this song are brilliant, but it's the feeling of the chorus that carries me away.

Last night I saw the Alvin Ailey dance company for the second time in my life, and they were just as affective as I remembered. Poke around the site a bit and you'll soon see that the company members are gorgeous, and I assure you that without seeing them move, you don't know the half of it. Their work is passionate and specific, and it is a real treat to spend time experiencing their artistry. The first time I saw them was some five or six years ago, and I didn't know what I was in for then, so was doubly appreciative. I wondered if the blush of first impression would have faded a bit for me this time around. It didn't.

Of course, their beauty -- physical and kinesthetic -- is far from useless. Even if one were to be stupid enough to see dance as a generally useless expression, Ailey's work and the work he's inspired since wouldn't be lacking in usefulness. It always expresses something about a specific culture or movement that we couldn't quite learn in any other medium. Watching last night though, immersed in all that keen beauty, I got to thinking about the supposed virtue of beauty. Or rather I should call it the disputed virtue, since beauty as either cause or effect in "good" art has been a hotly debated aspect of art since time-just-about-immemorial. I think about it quite a lot myself, in the context of an actor who can't help but notice that some very pretty, very untalented folks get rather far rather fast. But last night, engulfed by it, I started thinking in less jaded terms about the role of beauty in artistic expression.

A girl I knew in college and I were taking a walk in our fairly new home of Richmond, Virginia. I remember passing an old, decrepid brick building, with exposed and broken pipes and a fire escape, all various shades of red and rust. I wondered aloud what it was that was drawing me to ugliness lately. My friend replied, "What makes you think that's ugly?" And she was right -- it was beautiful. Thinking of that run-down building as ugly was a preconceived judgment on my part, based on ideas about good and evil as they apply to structure, society, prosperity, etc. It's an easy mistake, as beauty/ugliness is in itself about as subjective a concept as I can imagine. It has as much to do with an emotional response as with anything else, and emotions are not binary. I suppose part of what impresses me about Ailey's work is that I'm immediately confronted with stupidly beautiful people, and then that experience of beauty is surpassed in strides (literally) by the beauty of some particular movement or shape they create.

Of course, I'm sure there are some who will disagree.

Actually, the subjective nature of beauty and ugliness (and all gradients thereof) gives me some hope for capital-T Truth playing a significant role in our work. One of the most famous (read: most cliched) quotes about Beauty and Truth having a relationship come from poor, too-soon-departed Keats:

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

It's one of those that I can go on considering in different lights throughout my life, I think. (That has proven true thus far, anyway.) You've got to love that the essence of the argument is the only bit in quotes; the idea that it is all we (or it [the urn]) know, and all we (or it [you know: the urn]) need to know, is all Keats. In other words, it's up to us whether we know it or need to know it, but history itself tells us that that Beauty = Truth, and vice versa.

Why am I going on about a (beautiful) poem? Because it forms the basis of a relationship between Beauty and Truth that is key to my assertion. That is, the commonality between perceptions of beauty is founded on a more shared, communal sense of Truth. In other words, given just how incredibly individual is everyone's opinion about what is ugly and what is beautiful, it makes sense to me that there must be a contributing factor to all those disparate opinions that allows them to find common ground in some cases -- that common factor being Truth. In my humble opinion. Capital-T Truth, mind you, which has less to do with empirical facts and more to do with feeling, with instinct. I think an innate sense of this Truth is that in which we're all participating when we come to an mutual appreciation of Beauty.

Certainly one can have beauty without Truth (one can have it, thanks to advertising and such, any time one wants it); hence my capital-B Beauty. Otherwise known as Glory, Spirit, Love, etc. I wouldn't have called seeing Alvin Ailey a religious experience per se but, then again, it did rather feel like going to church ought. There were times I felt lost, others when I felt as though we were going through the motions a bit, then suddenly a time without a sense of time, when I felt lifted out of myself and part of a whole I had barely felt myself in just moments prior. Then it would end, as all things must I suppose, and seem just as brief as it had infinite when it was happening. It's difficult to define or even describe a unifying experience, even though all of us have at some time or another felt it, probably because most of our intellect comes of division, of making distinctions. So you have to live the moments of unity. And should we creators and makers and artists try to make Beautiful work?

Yes.

Thanks

This year has had, for me, a lot to do with gratitude. That's not try to say that my life is oh-so great. There's plenty more that I would achieve, but I am awful happy with what I have, and I feel like it's all owed to something greater than me, whether that be God or simply a community of friends and family that love and support me. (Or both...?) Whatever the reason, I have a tremendous sense of gratitude that it's a little difficult to express properly. There are too many people to thank. There doesn't seem to be a personal enough way to accomplish that ample thanks.

"I'd like to start by thanking, well, the academy..."

{ thirty-seven minutes later... }

"...and you like me! You really, really, REALLY like me!!!"

It is very easy to mock someone for having a sense of gratitude, and I suppose it is a fine line between sincere gratitude and ingratiating praise, or an inflated sense of inner goodness. Truth be told, though, I think we're rather inclined to mock gratitude because it's an immensely vulnerable emotion, both for the one expressing it and the one it is being expressed to. The mockery (or sarcasm, a family favorite of mine) is a defensive action. I don't know if we're more afraid of having our egos inflated, or of being shot down by another's refusal of a heartfelt emotion, but either way thanks are often hard to give and to receive.

With all the feelings of gratitude I've had of late, I've felt a bit like a hippy. I was kind of raised by hippies. Not my parents (the professor and reverend Wills missed most of what we now think of as the 60s), but my church was a pretty peace-and-lovey place. We went on "retreats" out to the woods, and people brought acoustic guitars, and we'll leave it at that for now. (Perhaps my parents saw this as making up for lost time?) I don't believe all Unitarian Universalist congregations had quite the same flavor of far-out-itude as mine. Our first minister carried a walking staff during the children's services (he was pretty old, though [he is still my mental image of Gandalf {the Grey}]). UUs really are some of the most loving people in the world, but some of us take it to a degree of tenderness that makes me want to smack them around, just a little bit. Just to alert them to the possibility that not everything in the world today is beautiful and purposeful. Yet lately, I have been one such hippy. I worry that perhaps I'm coming across as someone newly in love, who can't help but be a bit obnoxious about it.

On the up-side, this has all reminded me of my religious feeling. Don't go -- I'm not about to proselytize! By "religious feeling," I mean something that goes by many names, none of which I generally use: the Holy Spirit, zen, transcendent awareness, etc. It's a feeling of connectedness to the world, a feeling of receptiveness, and holy crap but it is a difficult feeling to maintain in New York City. This feeling would come to me in nature a lot when I was young, occasionally in church, and almost always during holidays with my family. I feel as though I have lost contact with this feeling for a good portion of the past six years, actually, and maybe more, and that's a frightening thought. I'm glad I rediscovered it.

So that's one more thing to make me all hippy-dippy grateful in general. Dang it!

This begs the question, "Where did it go?" Or, perhaps more to the point, "Why?" I mean literally begs the question, because I'm a little desperate to understand it so that it doesn't happen again, or at least for so long. This feeling is vital to my ethics, whatever role you may believe God does or doesn't play in it all. When I operate from a feeling of gratitude, I make better choices, I do more good, I feel better and more possibilities open up to me. I am a better actor, simply as a result of being a more receptive and comprehensive listener. So. With all this goodness, all this pay-off, why would such an outlook ever be dismantled, or lost?

I've been seeing an acupuncturist lately for my various difficulties related to my injury of about two years past. This has been an interesting experience for me. One of the challenges of this particular therapy is that it is, after all, meant to relax a fellow, to improve flow and movement in body and energy. Second to shouting "RELAX!" at me, embedding my muscles with dozens of needles is a uniquely counter-intuitive process for getting me to relax. I have no great fear of needles, mind; what I have is a natural tendency to resist pain through tension and sheer, torqued will. I also have a bit of a thing about being immobile, and immobility is a key component to the beneficial acupuncture experience, as I have recently (painfully) learned. So: challenges. When my acupuncturist embeds a needle in a particularly lively point, I must not tense, I must not tremble, I must not resist. I must accept the pain, I must release the resistance, I must, in other words, allow the pain to pass through me. It's the only way to move forward into healing.

I was going to write that pain is what makes maintaining a sense of gratitude so difficult, but it isn't; not really. It's our responses to pain that can make gratitude difficult. I have to acknowledge now that my years of disconnect from being "in the spirit" were largely a result of my reaction to being hurt. I closed some important parts off. It's not a reasonable response to pain, no matter how vital an act of self-preservation it may seem. It arrests life, and it causes such a narrow perspective that great opportunities can be lost, terribly harmful choices made. That's neither an excuse nor an apology -- I'm not sure I could have done things any differently had I known to. It is, however, an acknowledgement that I can improve. I have to improve. I will. Feeling grateful is stronger than a feeling of hurt, if we give it a chance.

I never would have realized any of this, never even have rediscovered my sense of gratitude, without everyone who's crossed my path since I lost it. From my parents right across the board to whatever as-yet anonymous readers here there may be. So: Thank you.

Yes, you. I mean it. Thank you.

Meet you out in the woods this weekend. Bring a guitar.

Exhibition

I'm frankly surprised: I did a search for this word in the Aviary, to see when I'd ruminated on it previously, and came up with only one occurrence -- yesterday. That was only in reference to Friend Melissa's upcoming dance exhibition. The reason this surprises me is that I think about it quite a bit in terms of human (read: my) behavior. I think it's pretty undeniable that one does not become an actor without a certain persistent "Look at me!" impulse, and naturally I feel a bit conflicted about that. I don't think that's one of the better bits of acting technique, I really hate obvious artifice and insincerity, I do hate to be scrutinized, yet I must admit that I have a very basic urge to perform for an audience.

I've had two rehearsals over the past two evenings, one for each performance I'm doing this weekend. Tuesday night was for the benefit performance with Bond Street Theatre, and I spent a couple of hours cavorting about Monty-Python-style in their loft rehearsal-space-slash-apartment. I had come from il day jobo, and so was dressed in appropriate gear for the scene: button-down shirt, slacks, etc. As we progressed, however, I cuffed up my pants so the hems wouldn't drag (I was shoeless) and, as I got warmed up, stripped off my shirt, so I was wearing only my undershirt. Suddenly I found I had more energy for making physical choices. I was very interested in the choices to be made in the character's posture, his pace and quality of movement, and all the rest. Getting warm and losing the little suggestions of restriction that office clothes suggest contributed to this, of course, but there is also a large mirror in the studio that did not escape my attention.

Presume for a moment that there is a difference between an impulse toward exhibition, and vanity. They may be so closely related that they're like married cousins (ew), but let's still say they've got a distinct DNA strand or two. Vanity presupposes an attractive visage, or at the very least the potential to attract in that way. Exhibitionism, however, has more to do with being seen than being admired and/or being wanted for procreation purposes. Those of us excited by looking wretched in front of large groups may not necessarily be all that vain. What vanity I do suffer I try to be aware of, and keep in check with equal parts objectivity and self-deprecating humor. It's a lucky thing that I have nice eyes; they just read past my long, crooked nose that way. That sort of balance of power, if you will.

Last night the rehearsal was for the reading of Tom Rowan's play, Burning Leaves, and it actually took place at Tom's apartment, on 40th Street. The whole thing was a bit unconventional: in an apartment that had recently been moved into, an unfamiliar neighborhood, it was late to accommodate various schedules. Unconventional does not in this case mean unusual, mind -- New York conditions of living and renting often necessitate unconventional solutions. Nevertheless, I had a lot of time to kill before rehearsal, and in that time I think I got a little uncomfortable, a little introspective, so that when I arrived for rehearsal I didn't feel all that engaged, much less demonstrative. It's rather a new group to work with, too, yadda yadda yadda. I had my reasons. I was self-conscious, and slow to warm up. Gradually I became more comfortable, and my acting choices improved in both their execution and the quality of choice. This time, however, I did not find the comfort to improve from exhibiting myself. Rather, I found it in gradually letting go of the worries related to exhibiting oneself.

Oh, balance! You are such an elusive spirit! When I began looking seriously into Eastern philosophy, I ultimately chose to align myself with Taoism instead of Zen Buddhism (this was way back in the day, when I was so young I didn't know what a hangover was [not really] and I didn't have necessary stretches to do every morning). There were many reasons for this choice -- although the concept of Zen had a strong appeal for me -- but the most convincing reason has to do with the difference in the way Taoists and Buddhists generally approach the problem of human desire. Buddhists believe the only way to spiritually improve oneself is to rid oneself of all earthly desires, and possibly, ultimately, all spiritual desires as well (they don't have koans for nothing). Taoists, on the other hand, acknowledge desire as a natural aspect of humanity, and one that's part of the whole process. Transcendent thought and action is available in any part of the whole. Instead of urging you to let go of all desire from the word "go," a Taoist might say, "Good luck with that," and mean it. I think desires are good to transcend. I also think they're good to learn from.

So I keep performing. The farther along I get, the more that desire for exhibition changes; perhaps it grows more mature. I'd like to think it does. I'd like to think that I'll become more intelligent and balanced in my performance as I continue to live and learn and, so far at least, I believe my progress has been evident. In the long view. When I was in my hometown for The Big Show, I ran into my high school drama teacher in a restaurant, the very day of the event. I hadn't seen or spoken to him in over a dozen years, and I was shy to approach him. Once I had, however, I wanted to audition for him. Not to be cast, obviously. But maybe just to be seen.

Four (or Five) Weddings and a Funeral

I've been thinking about death a lot, lately. Not in a goth way, I assure you. (Remember goth, the old emo?) Although, I am pretty goth, without even trying, so it may be more goth than I am aware, my thinking, surrounded and filled by gothness as I am. I mean, I wore nothing but black clothing throughout high school. "That, my friend, is a dark side." The subject of death has been brought up repeatedly by Yours Gothicly here at the Aviary; twenty-two times to date (not including this-here entry), to be exact. I've waxed a little philosophical about the subject, but for the most part my addresses to the final spectre have to do with how I believe it relates to comedy, and the laughter impulse. In brief, I believe most of our spontaneous laughter arises from reminders that we are mortal; that some day, each of us will die.

Told you I was goth.

Be that as it may--or may not--my belief in it has gone a long way toward helping me cope with the idea of confronting my own death. Now, I've never even been close, by either disease or incident, so far as I was aware. So the next is to be taken with a grain or two of salt. I've been thinking lately that our awareness of death is also a big part of what drives humans, what makes us so ambitious and, often, so anxious. I think you'd find a corollary between people who are generally anxious and driven, and those that are philosophically engaged in resisting death. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that whatever Zen-ish approach I've mastered for my own life is a direct result of diminishing my own fear of death. Or, to give myself less credit, perhaps it's a result of living in a more complete ignorance of my own death. As I get older, and my eventual death becomes more conceivable to me, I have to relearn to accept that idea, over and over again. And in many ways, I feel much more driven now that I've gained a little more perspective on how quickly I could exit life's stage. When I was younger I tended to dream bigger, but none of it seemed especially urgent. It would come eventually. Now I dream (a shade) more realistically, but it's got a greater sense of urgency. Because now, I only see one thing as truly inevitable.

In the coming six months or so, I'm involved in no less than four weddings. It's true. I've got ones to attend in September, October and January. Oh, and one in November that I ought not to miss, either. There are even more going on than these, others in my extended circles of friends, at the same time. I don't know why, but these things always seem to come in cycles of density and naught. (We certainly didn't plan it that way.) Marriage is one of those things that it seems to me each person comes to in his or her own time; kind of the most amazing collaboration possible. It depends upon a convergence of so many factors that it's a little amazing to me that it ever happens, much less happens so often, now-a-days. I mean, we do get a better deal on taxes and such, but marriage isn't necessary to the common person's survival the way it historically has been. Apart from some antiquated societal expectations, marriage has very little excuse for being anything other than an independent, individual choice. There's virtually no reason for a fairly stable person to get married into any situation that's short of perfect for us. We can hold out for love, looks, money, sexy English dialect -- whatever your criteria. It is in no way assumptive, or inevitable. In this way, marriage becomes even more meaningful; it is a matter of choice.

As in all exploits human, marriage is motivated somewhat by self-awareness, and death. No one wants to die alone. Even if that last walk is ultimately up to you, you want someone there holding your hand just before you take it, if possible. There are many human relationships that can buy one insurance toward that circumstance, but marriage is the most likely gold standard.

This Monday, a funeral will be held for someone who was very dear to me. Her body relented to a long battle with cancer last Monday morning. She was the mother of an exgirlfriend of mine, so my connection with her and her family is not the most frequent. It's a rare and valuable connection for me, though, in that in spite of the disappointment and pain of the romantic relationship and its conclusion, my relationship with the family continued in a spirit of mutually cherished love and respect. They're a family strong in Christian faith and, though I don't see everything the same way that they do, I know their faith in God is part of the reason I have had a continued loving relationship with them. Particularly with the mother. She was a shining light. I know that sounds like something everyone says about their loved ones lost, but I couldn't mean it more specifically to her. Judi's sole motivation during the time I knew her, it seemed, was for the joy and sense of love in absolutely everyone around her. She was loving, warm, funny, a believer, and though I've no doubt she's gone on to that place she believes in, to be unified in that same spirit of love she embodied, it's just not fair that she's left us.

A little over a year ago, I saw Judi again for the first time in years. The occasion was her daughter's wedding, and I ended up having to really bust-ass to get down to North Carolina for it. My flight got cancelled at the last minute, and a mutual friend and I ended up renting a car in Astoria ("Will you be staying within the tri-state area?" "We'll try.") and driving fourteen hours with traffic and weather issues. A lot of people questioned the wisdom of my actions. Not the rental car, mind you -- no one knew about that until afterward. No, it was the idea of attending an exgirlfriend's wedding. There were no qualifying factors to her "exgirlfriend" status in my life: we hadn't been friends first; we had been a serious, long-term relationship; the break-up had been painful. I was surprised to have been invited, and I gave serious consideration to graciously declining. To my memory of it, Judi's struggle with cancer began in the interim between her daughter's engagement and wedding day, so I knew of it when I got my invitation. She's the first person I had known with malignant cancer. I wanted to see her and the rest of the family again anyway, I admit, but I wanted to see her more upon hearing that news. It was a good justification for my actions, but I had no experience to apply to the concept that her life was truly in danger. To put it another way, I made a good decision almost by accident, because Judi's death did not at the time feel like a real possibility to me. When I did see her at the reception, her voice was just a whisper--a result of the extensive chemotherapy she had been undergoing--but she was softly ebullient with joy, for her daughter's marriage of course, and also, somehow, to see me again. We didn't talk much, but we had ourselves one hell of a significant hug.

We never know when we might be seeing someone for the last time in our lives. It can be easy to forget that, in this day and age, with all the myriad ways we have not only of staying "in touch" but "reconnecting" with people from our past. It can also be easy to remember it, and allow it to drive us into anxiety and a useless blind-fighting of inevitability. Perhaps, though, this awareness can allow us instead to appreciate our hellos and goodbyes a little more. Maybe we can come to never take a hug or handshake for granted, or to reject the notion that anything is done for us, or obligatory. Every action in our lives, every person we love, can be a choice. Hopefully, a true and meaningful choice. That's what I'm going to try to remember. Judi, I think, would appreciate that idea.

Inseparable

It has been my intention on this here 'blog to keep the details of my personal life out of it. I go back and forth on this policy, largely due to my feeling that my personal life unavoidably affects my artistic life. Should I be content to tell a partial story? Invariably, however, I return to my policy. Many people love 'blogs for the ultra-personal peek they afford into a given person's inner life. I've got nothing against that, in general. As an actor, however, I'm spending a lot of my time making very specific choices about what of me I'm showing. In my little world, there's something vaguely pornographic about indiscriminately baring everything about myself and my life for the world at large, not to mention recorded human history. Perhaps it's hypocritical of me. After all, actors who are really "in the moment" probably don't really have all that much conscious choice about what they're revealing of themselves. Nevertheless, I choose to make the distinction where I can.

This particular entry is a choice as well, and I choose it as an exception that proves the rule; hypocrisy be damned. In acting, we are taught to choose our moments as well as what we do with them. One tries to earn a dramatic pause through the pace and emotional incidents of moments leading up to it. One often tries to balance a bombastic or tyrannical character with the occasional moment of quiet expression, or vulnerability. I'm going to try to express something very personal, very significant to me, and just hope that a year's worth of holding to my own rule has earned me that luxury.

The only trouble is, someone beat me to the punch and expressed it, in my opinion, much better than I ever could.

When I first discovered Taoism, and was most ravenous for information about it, I was especially drawn to the concept of each person's life having a "way," a given direction one could sense. This resolved a lot of mixed feelings I had about concepts such as fate and destiny, which seemed too fixed and divinely bequeathed to me. Taoism seemed to be saying that yes, there was a path that was most right for one's life, but no omniscient force or forces were forcing the individual down that path. When you feel balanced, when less wasted force and effort is required, you are closer to your way. When it's otherwise, you're straying. Maybe you're careening into the jaws of misery or, more likely, you're doing a little exploring. (The Taoists are great about the value of mistakes and youthful error.) I step on and off my path for different periods of time, and I'll tell you this for nothing: It is a whole lot easier to feel when I've stepped back on to the path than when I've taken a step off of it.

Personally, I don't think one's way should ever serve as an excuse. ("I had to kill them hobos. It was part of my Way.") We just aren't aware enough of its nature moment-to-moment to load it with blame. Besides, how can we ever know whether we've left the path or been thrown off it, just to teach us a lesson? Just occasionally, however, I believe the path deserves some acclaim.

Last week I asked a woman I love if she'd let me spend the rest of my life with her, and she told me yes. (I have to take her at her word.) All the experiences leading up to my proposal, and the moment of proposing itself, showed me what all those infuriating married people meant when they would answer me, over and over again, "You just know." It's true, and there's not much else to say to describe it. I've had literally years of experience feeling, "Yes, now, this must be it. Right? Right?" That asking was always there, though, at the end. And now somehow, certainty -- of the for-better-or-worse variety -- lit on my heart and shot electrified emails to my body and mind. Surprisingly enough, that sense of certainty grew even stronger when I actually bent my knee(s).

What else can I say? I'm on my Way.

A Little Inside

Friend David recently examined past entries of mine (specifically, regarding my trips to California and Italy last year), and rather inadvertantly reminded me that Odin's Aviary here has gotten a little "inside" over the year. That is to say, there are certain terms and jokes here that new readers (those clambering at my virtual door daily) may not appreciate. I anticipated that when I started writing here. I have a penchant for nicknames, quotes and running gags, all of which -- when put in a long-term context -- lend themselves to coming across as a little inside. My apologies. This habit, however, has led me to an interesting discovery. An accident, to be sure, but one of the kind I enjoy and can't help taking some interest in.

Throughout the history of this 'blog thus far, I have used approximations of those irritating little marks one finds at the end of words or terms claiming rights to those words or terms. Trademark, copyright, rights reserved, patent pending, kosher . . . etc. (I know, for instance, that you can't patent language [apart from code, I think] or qualify it as "kosher," but I enjoy pretending you can.) This running gag originated from a variety of sources. One was a conversation with Friend Kate over the frustration of people trade-marking names of various forms of acrobalance. Another was the discovery that the word "superhero"(TM) had been trade-marked. It's all a little absurd, and I dig absurdity, so I dig into it in my little ways.

Along these lions, when I introduced my term The Third Life(r), I made sure to follow it with a little glyph of ownership, and have continued to do so with some regularity ever since. For some reason, it never ocurred to me to check into this, to simply Google-ize the term and see what came up. Friend David stumbled upon my 'blog again, did a little reading and, confused by the inside-term of The Third Life(c), decided to do just that. And what do you know? It ain't mine. I stole. From the Dutch. From a priest!

There was this dude: Jan van Ruusbroec, and in 1335 (cripes!) he wrote a book called The Spiritual Espousals. This book was comprised of three parts, and the last is called The Third Life, or, The Contemplative Life. From what I can glean here, Ruusbroec (van) was a part of a period of spiritual humanism in Flanders, and he got into some hot water for this third part of his book, because some felt it suggested pantheism or -- still worse, I'll just betcha -- that humans could come to a level with God (that's with a capital Gee). I'm still absorbing how he thought that was possible, but I get the feeling behind it. Particularly the bit about everyone having a portion of the divine within. We Unitarian Universalists tend to be a pretty humanistic bunch, and I tend to be a humanist who craves spiritual experiences, so I'm right there with Jan in at least one respect.

It is curious, though, that my phrase (Jan's phrase) should be used to describe a philosophical way of life at all, much less one that purports to be an alternative, and to emphasize enlightenment. Almost as much as I enjoy absurdity, I also enjoy coincidence. The pragmatism in me wages constant war with the inspiration -- as does the humanism with the spiritualism? -- and though it's always brief, every so often the inspiration wins a battle or two. This would be one such case. The connection between our use of the term is thin, yes, and I know we arrived at it from completely different . . . well, everything. Nevertheless. I am given pause. And I was taught that when I receive a gift, I should say "thank you."

When I use the term The Third Life (Copyright van Russbroec, 1335), I mean to refer to two things: the time an artist spends on his or her artistry, and that whole life in general, the one in which the artist makes a choice to devote time to their art. It may seem obvious. The conventional definition of an artist might be "one who makes art," but come on. I mean, really. Webster's wouldn't accept that. It's horrible for me to imagine, but there have probably been millions of gifted, necessary artists throughout history who simply never made the choice to pursue their art. Though they're none of them mutually exclusive, it's tough to balance life, love and art. It's tough because they're not mutually exclusive. This 'blog is a journal of one guy's attempt to create that balance, and improve it, in his life. Even the bits about comicbooks and fart jokes.

I don't mean to suggest that art = divine enlightenment by this comparison. Indeed, I would never presume to suggest that I have any generally useful insight into what is or isn't divine. (I even view it as going out on a limb to declare that to err is human, fer Christ's sake.) I will go so far, however, as to say that my quest for an artistic life is a spiritual one for me. Issues of inspiration and creation aside, just the alternating instrospection and communal contact with others that theatre allows me is what I consider a religious experience. Theist or humanist, I am more real, more awake, more alive and in love when I am living my life for something more than personal satisfaction or contentment. Apparently, so was ol' Jan.

Rock on, Jan. Rock. On.

Brass Monkey

Pursuant to Friend Dave's recommendation, I caught an $11.75 matinee of The Golden Compass yesterday. To be honest, this was also pursuant to not working, having a cold and being pretty certain that I'd do myself worse financial disadvantage if I had two hours more out amongst the Christmas fairs of New York. But I digress (shamelessly [and at great length {mostly as an excuse to ((ab))use proper parenthetical structure}]), and the title of this entry has not merely to do with ripping off Friend Davey's 'blog conceit.

The Golden Compass, in my opinion, has two highly effective devices on which most of the success of the movie rides. The first has to do with the first half of the movie. Everyone's soul, you see, in this imagined world, exists outside of themselves as a sort of animal familiar that never leaves their side. Nicole Kidman's familiar (or daemon) is a monkey, with oddly metallic fur. Upon her introduction to the plot, the metastructure of the story goes a little something like this: Hey, look at how pretty our film is, how fantastical, isn't it all so calming and utopian and OH MY GOD WHERE'D THAT SCREAMING MONKEY COME FROM!? I am not kidding. There was this one time when, I swear to you, the monkey popped up from the bottom of the screen from out of nowhere. I mean, he didn't even have something he could realistically be standing on in the environment, and there he was again, screaming. If I had been one of the animators on this, I would have saved the file, program, whatever, of the monkey, for use in startling my coworkers for years to come. Just imagine sweating through your 2007 TurboTax when, from out of absolutely nowhere, a screaming golden monkey juts his head into your screen. In all fairness, the movie should have at least been subtitled The (Screaming) Golden Monkey.

Oh yeah. The other highly effective device can be summed up in two words: Bear and Fight. Bear fights. Fo' reals. Keep your eyes peeled. This could be a whole new sub-genre of action film. And if so, I am there, I am wearing the t-shirt, I am learning the terminology (ah, the classic Rips-Lower-Jaw-from-Body technique...) and I am enrolled in the Bear Fighting fantasy camp. Stick some giant foam paws on me. I am ready to rumble.

When the fur settles, and the dust as well, this is pretty much a good-time, only-enough-pathos-to-justify-some-violence Christmas movie. Lots of snow. Talking animals. Cute kids. And two of the most gorgeous adult actors on the screen these days, for mom and dad. (In fact: Hey: I know that movie casts often repeat themselves, but weren't these two just in that Body Snatchers reremake? This reminds me of the Batman Begins/The Prestige and The Matrix/Memento phenomenon. Not to mention the unholy trinity of Willis/Jackson/Travolta. Spread some of the love around, Hollywood.) They even clipped off the ending of the first book in order to make the film conclude a bit happier, which actually upsets me more than sucking the supposed Atheism out of it.

As to that (the Atheism)--I'm sorry, but I just can't stay off this topic (see 12/7/07). Friend Younce posits in his Comments section that if the ultimate plot of this trilogy involves "killing God," it indicates not only a belief in God, but an actual finger, pointing to God, saying (yes, they'd probably have talking fingers in this sort of trilogy), "Hey look: It's God. I found him/her/it. He/she/it exists." I'm afraid I disagree, to a certain extent. The author, as any fantasy author may be accused, is clearly working in allegory. To "kill God" is in his allegory to eradicate the supposedly irrational belief in God from within ourselves. In fact, what will be really interesting as far as these movies go will be to see how they handle that little feat in the third film. The characters' "daemons" represent individualism, or Humanism, after a fashion.

I have a curious history with the books this franchise is sprung from. I have only read the first two, and those quite by necessity. It was toward the end of my first trip to Italy, in 2006, and I came down with a serious bug that laid me up with a high fever for almost a week. With nothing to do but lie in bed and either read, or try to learn Italian from their daytime television, I quickly tore through the novel I had brought: The Mask of Apollo. (A birthday gift from Friend Patrick, and the first Mary Renault book I ever undertook.) Friend Heather loaned me the first two books of His Dark Materials and I drank them up in lieu of the excellent white wines of Orvieto. I write about it now, similarly afflicted (though no high fever, thank...whatever providence may be), and acknowledge that my knowledge of the books is partial and drenched with fever-sweat.

I reiterate: Go Atheists. I've got nothing against them, just like I've got nothing against Christians or Muslims. Those for whom I do have something against (that made sense grammatically, I swear), is them what (that bit didn't, though) exercise their beliefs--any beliefs--by way of disparaging others'. Up with that I shall not put. It may seem only fair; the Atheists have had to deal with eons of persecution, I realize, but here's another thing I'd do away with: the symbol for justice being a beam-balance scale. Balance is good, but dichotomy is simply a deceptive paradigm for identifying anything. I'm all for clarity, but I aspire to understand all things beyond a simple yes, or no. All things are a part of a whole, in my humble opinion. Balance, in the theological, philosophical sense, cannot be expressed on a simple beam. I come around, by tender footfalls, to my point.

In my post of December 7th of this year, I mentioned in passing that the notion of "fate" is inescapable to me because it permeates every story we tell on some level. (Pullman, the author of the books in question, by the way, values stories above all else. Reminds me of Gaiman in that way.) Especially in theatre, fate, or some analogue of it, sort of makes the motor run. This goes for both tragedy and comedy. Similarly, I'm not sure one can tell a story without God entering into it. If we could, I'm not sure we'd want to. The storyteller is, after a fashion, God of the story. What gives the majority of humans meaning in their lives? God. Who determines meaning in a story? The storyteller. This paradigm (or matrix, if you will) manifests in our novels, movies and plays on conscious and subconscious levels. It's tough for me to point toward it in His Dark Materials before having read the third installment but, for those who know the series, might not the presence of "dust" (magical stuff from the universe that connects people to their souls, and their souls to the source of "dust") be a manifestation of a, albeit rather Universalist, concept of divinity?

Perhaps I am simply too influenced by what little classical education I have absorbed. All the Greek plays have a theme that can be summed up as, "Hey, you can mess with the Gods all you want, but after a few hours, they get the last word, machina or no." I agree with the Atheists when they tell us (calmly, without insult) to take responsibility for the here and now, and love humanity for being human. I'm just not sure that it's possible to kill God off entirely, in spite of Nietzsche and Pullman and the rest. Please, contest my claim; I'd love to hear theories, especially as relates to storytelling. Interestingly enough, Friend Dave is also a big proponent of role-playing games for which there is not necessarily a storyteller. In these, instead of a typical structure of a game-master, who tells everyone what's going on, the players themselves contribute to the narrative in different ways. Perhaps therein lies a way of retiring God. Perhaps, instead, it creates a pantheon of Gods.

Part of my holiday travel plans include venturing south to Friends Davey, Dave and Mark, to play this sort of game all together. It's an appointment a long time in the making, and I'm looking forward to it. These friends of mine are some of the best storytellers I know. I'll let you know what stories we create together.

You can bet a screaming monkey will enter into it, somewhere.

Concepts I Don't Believe In But That Still Rule My Life And I Have No Hope For Doing Anything About Because They're Just Too Pervasive In Our Culture

Plus one I do believe in: God.

• Fate.
  It's not just that I am uncomfortable with the idea that my life is planned out. I find the notion of fate insulting to my intelligence. What is the point of anything, if it all already exists in a plan somewhere? Yet most theatre is based on some idea, or at least feeling, of fate.


• Omens.
  Self-fulfilling nonsense. And I will never stop seeing them everywhere. Thank God, actually, because these things can get through to me when I'm otherwise completely disconnected from myself.


• "Everything happens for a reason."
  No, it doesn't. If science isn't enough to convince you of this, at least take a moment to regard that there is no ending to stories (except death), and therefore no basis by which to judge the supposed long-term purpose of incidents. Still, we need hope or faith or both to get through it all, don't we?


• Angels/Demons.
  They make great symbols, but ultimately they're contradictory even to the theologies that purport their existence.


• The D/Evil.
  Another great symbol here, and mainly what he's a symbol for is our guilt. Sometimes the guilt we feel over our lack of guilt, for growing up, for self-interest -- Lucifer (named for a mistranslation, by the way) is all these things. Mainly, I don't believe in such a thing as absolute evil. "Evil," as it is commonly perceived, requires self-awareness, and every self-aware creature I've ever met does "evil" things out of sickness, ill-thought. Plain and simple.


• Cuteness (as a virtue).
  Oh man. Must I endure? I must, because cuteness, either as an expression of "aw" or the more visceral "oh," endures. We want to procreate, to get freaky with cuteness, to create more cuteness. So we'll always want the cute. But it ain't a measure of nothin'. Except that it is.


• Violence (as a solution).
  It only works on zombies, and even then you've probably got a lot of personal dehumanization to deal with as an after-effect, assuming the movies are at all relevant to the "real" thing.


• Zombies.
  See above.
  
• Organized sports.
  Blame it on my youth: They don't actually matter.


• Money.
  I eagerly anticipate the Star Trek utopian future, in which capitalism is obliterated somehow. As common systems of exchange go, money blows. I don't have to justify this feeling to anyone


• Elvis.
  I just don't get what was so great about The King. Maybe someone can explain it to me. In them meantime, alive or dead, he doesn't make my list of believed-in.

What inspired this rant of rejection, especially from one whose history is so steeped in a faith of universal acceptance? I have been noticing and reading a lot lately--or so it seems to me--about Atheism as a movement. I do not oppose this movement. On the contrary, I think Atheists have been rather oppressed in our global culture, and I don't like anyone to be oppressed (REpressed, sometimes...) and so, say "Bully!" to the outspoken Atheists. I worry, however, over the way so many of them with the benefit of the public ear are immediately resorting to the stampeding debate tactics of those further into a life of faith that they so oppose. It's natural, when your beliefs are shaped by what you don't believe, to oppose another view, and nascent societies (such as openly atheistic groups in America) are bound to overstate their claim when they finally get a voice. So maybe I've nothing to worry about. Maybe them thar' Atheists will never become quite as fascist as to start bombing cathedrals and synagogues.

I believe in God, and it's important you know that if you're going to know me. I know there's no empirical evidence for the big G. I know lots of people think they have lots of conclusive evidence that God can't exist. I don't disagree with such people on any particular point, and actually tend to agree with the "facts," as scientists understand them. I even agree with Lennon, "Imagine," and think the world would be a much more peaceful place without religion. So why do I continue to believe in God? Is it just because I'm a minister's son? Is it stubborn wishful thinking, or deep-seeded superstition? Perhaps it's just playing it safe.

It's that I believe in something greater than all we can perceive. This "greater" thing is pervasive, interconnects us and has more meaningful significance than forces like gravity and magnetism (hell: it may be the source of all force[s]). It's not important to me that the greatness, which I'll go ahead and call God from here on out, created us, or nurtures us, or even has any personally conceivable relationship to us. What is important, to my mind and heart, is that the belief in God keep us from turning completely into self-important little gits, hell-bent on destroying one another and our celestial terrarium. I feel most in a spirit of God when I am grateful for life, all of it, and I can do that without seeing God as a man or regarding a book as gooder than most (the gooderest book). So rock on, Atheists. Get heard. I'm all for it. I hope you do some good in the world.

Me, though: I'm a believer.

Gull(ability)

I became very interested in philosophy in my early twenties. It was around a time when I was just figuring out most of my priorities in my work and life in general, and it helped that I (a Unitarian Universalist) was freshly in love with a girl who had some very strong, specific ideas about life, the universe and everything. One wishes to rise to such specificity, after all. So I began reaching out--in the inimitable U.U. fashion--for any and everything around me related to philosophy. I rapidly began leaning eastward, based on a completely non-substance-abused altered state I found myself in one day. Here's a short list of some of the books I explored as a part of this process:

• The Case for Christ
• A Grief Observed
• The Celestine Prophecy
• Hero with A Thousand Faces
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• Way of the Peaceful Warrior
• The Tao of Pooh
• Tao Te Ching
• The Analects
• The Art of War
• Chuang Tzu
• Siddhartha
• The Prophet

I came to find a lot of personal truth in Taoism, such as I understood it, and incorporated it into my core philosophy of Unitarian Universalism. (Let's not get into religion here; pretend we're at the Thanksgiving dinner table.) One's spiritual and philosophical journey continues, etc., etc. Being a U.U., I find people with answers a little silly. People with answers often find this frustrating. I suppose this is part of the motivation behind all these books written about the way we should all be living. Sure, there's a selfless hero's quest to such a contribution to the history of literature; every self-help author has had some profound sip from the fountain of Truth and returns to his or her humble hometown to share the wealth, like a mama bird, regurgitating into her young, blind ones' beaks. But let's face it, too: No matter how ecumenical one is, writing a treatise on what one believes is at least a little about saying, "I know something you don't."

Written apparently in a similar spirit is the famed book Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach. I'll admit two things: I haven't read the book, and I can't get a terribly clear picture of the author's intention in writing it. It seems, however, to have been embraced by anarchic Christianity as a really good metaphor for how a life should be lived, and by all accounts (no: still haven't read it) there are some good reasons for this identification.

Last night I attended Kinesis Dance Project's presentation of Gull(ability), a work-in-progress sort of thing in its first stages. The dance featured Friend Patrick and Friend Melissa (who is also Kinesis' founder/choreographer/artistic director) along with three other dancers, and was squoze (is SO a word) into the Manhattan Theatre Source stage, which itself was further reduced in spacial capacity by a proscenium demi-arch, presumably built for this weekend's premier there. True to my college habits, I read up on the various notes and critiques of Jonathan Livingston Seagull prior to attending, in order to better appreciate whatever parallels Friend Melissa might draw. This was probably a dumb idea on my part.

I forgot two things. Firstly, Melissa tends to treat her inspiration for shows as just that, making her product unlimited by any artificial allegiance to identifiable details from the source. There were people emulating seagulls, and there was the dissatisfaction in an individual for the given circumstances of her life, but from there it took off into explorations and free-verse in the form of dance. And therein is my second neglected fact: It is a dance. I forgot that my best mental state for watching dance is one of extreme receptivity--a relaxed mind taking in waves, rather than an analytical one struggling to make sense of it all. That difference of mental state makes all the difference between an evening of sublimity or one of frustration. I found the sublimity, but wasted a lot of time sputtering about in the detritus of logic and analysis.

And so maybe too there was a third neglection (is SO a word) (the three thing just never gets old for me, do it?). The Taoists are big on being receptive. It's sort of their whole thing, really (see 7/16/07 for a brief reference to my take on this), and part of the appeal of the philosophy for yours truly is the way in which it reminds me how valid and valuable that approach can be, in any experience. I neglect my self-learned lessons sometimes, to my and my friends' and coworkers' disadvantage.

Gull(ability) doesn't seem to be interested in telling a story per se; at this stage, it is much more an alternately humorous and existential expose into the neuroses of four seagulls, and the aspirations to nonconformity of one. This does not sound entertaining, I confess, but in the hands (and feet [and legs]) of Melissa Riker and her crew of uninhibited dancers it achieves out-loud laughter. They do not seek to impersonate seagulls, or even to embody them (a term I hate seeing the generic use of in artistic circles). Rather they interpret seagulls in movement and shape into human forms, each one a little characteristic of the individual dancer, which is nice, seeing as how that's most likely a distinction animals make amongst members of their own species. A particularly memorable sequence involved a series of tableau in which the dances all came together to form the shape of a single seagull from different perspectives, weight-sharing and flat-out climbing atop one another to create wings. The entire performance was infused with this sort of child-like joy, which we can safely state is a trademark of Melissa's choreography to date.

In contrast to that joy, Gull(ability) also contained some movement that began humorously, but through repetition became almost disheartening. The dancers would haul their left legs up and down, or perform a brief, formal series of pelvic twitches with glassy stares, and hysterical laughter was elicited repeatedly by the latter. As the piece went on, however, it became clear these twitches were unthinking, unfeeling impulses--compulsive--and something about them seemed empty and sad. This, interspersed as it was with "solos" in which each gull came on stage with a bundle of seemingly precious items and made a nest out of them somewhere on stage or in the audience, suggested to me only after the performance the hollowness of the pursuit of a material life.

Then again, maybe it was just a comment on conservationism?

In terms of what I'd like to see this piece progress with (and Melissa asked for feedback, so stop judging me to be judgmental), of course I'd hate to see any of Melissa's patented sense of humor leave, and the sound design by Benjamin Oyzon was beautifully layered. I would like to see a more succinct narrative of our seagulls' personal quirks. Or perhaps an expanded view of who they are, as seagulls (a sentence I never would have guessed I'd one day write). I felt it needed to go one way or the other, or else let their nesting build toward something, otherwise it becomes (at least in form) too predictable to me. But this is an actor talking. I'm always trying to make it about story.

When very often, it's better just to not act, and let the moment be what it wants to be.

Self-Aware . . . ed

Self-awareness is a fascinating aspect of the human condition. It will blow your mind to think of it for very long. I mean, dude: You're only able to think of it because you possess it. It's an almost inconceivable cycle of reciprocation, like the chicken and the egg, or Siegfried and Roy. An endless spiral in and down, forcing us to wonder if infinity owes more to inner space, than outer.

I swear I'm not snorting the pot.

It is fascinating to me, though. Self-awareness seems to be a uniquely human condition, though this may simply be a result of we being the only ones we understand, verbal communication-wise. I mean, maybe a dolphin (maybe even one in S&R's Secret Garden, which just scares the crap out of me) can conceive of thinking "I am," and is maybe even capable of expressing it, and we just can't relate. I'm inclined to think, however, that we are the only ones on this planet who can think about what (or worse: who) we are. It's also my opinion that such a gift creates as many problems as it solves.

Take, for example, suicide. Other creatures can starve themselves to death, it's true, but we seem to be the only ones who can plan our own deaths, not to mention come to perceive nonexistence as a preferable condition to life itself. This is the big (possibly biggest) down side to self-awareness--the way it can wreak havoc with a simple life of stimulus and response. The urge to examine is inherent in us as a species, and I suppose it was inevitable that such an urge would eventually come to be focused upon our selves. On about a par with self-destructive behavior as an unwelcome result of self-awareness, is bad acting.

What? Well, it's on a par for me, anyway.

There are few things quite as miserable as suffering through a performance in which the actors are self-conscious. The young, I suppose, pull it off with a certain earnest quality; but the older the actor, the less forgivable this heinous crime of art. Nothing will destroy the verity, and suck the wind out of the sails of a show faster than even a single actor who seems to be aware he or she is anything but the character he or she is playing. I'm not speaking to style, here. If your play includes the actors as characters, well, fine (see 6/29/07 for my general responses to such defiance of classical structure), but even in such cases the moment of action has to be believed in. Self-consciousness destroys that more effectively than any other distraction, and lots and lots of we actors (we thousands, we stand of others) spend lots and lots of our time working on reliably attaining a state in which we can do the deed without thinking.

Enter an Eastern perspective. This summer, my father and a fellow member of my mom's church are writing a sermon together (UU Breakdown: Most American UU churches apply to their ministers the agrarian tradition of summers off, in which time the parishioners get their chance to shine from the podium. Most parishioners, though not farmers, tend to apply this schedule to their church-going, as well.), the which is largely based on drawing connections between spiritual beliefs and quantum physics. The sermon, I believe, was inspired in large part by this: The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. I know nothing of physics (for that, try Friend Chris [he doesn't write for Spider-Man; the other one]), but I've read my share of more eastern thought, and find the connections very, er . . . connected. Taoism--my particular favorite--speaks of all things beginning in unity before being split into "the ten thousand things." It also incorporates a concept called wu wei (无为), often in the axiom: wei wu wei. The first means roughly "without action," the second, "action without action," which is often interpreted as "effortless action." To put it another way, the idea is that there is a way of achieving things without using a lot of effort. Now, paraphrasing philosophy is tricky enough business, but trickier still when the book you're interpreting is a combination of personal and ruling philosophies, possibly written with a particular ruler in mind.

This combination of personal bias and undefined terms makes the Tao Te Ching rather like any acting textbook. But I digress. At great length. Shamelessly.

It is appropriate, to me, that terms such as physics, action and philosophy should find unity in a discussion of the craft of acting. In Taoism, wei wu wei speaks to the idea of there being a way of all things (tao) that it is our tendency to interrupt or otherwise interfere with through our actions and deliberations; therefore, the best way of achieving goals is to be sure one is going with this way, or at least functioning with an awareness of it. The more one achieves this, the more his or her actions will arise from stillness. Similarly, the actor (her role named by the very stuff of her craft--action) must be an expert listener and, after long hours of exploration and decision making about her actions, live in the moment without choreography, true in the moment, one with the way. A true moment on stage must be like a force, such as that term is defined in physics--just as inevitable, just as simple.

It's a tricky business. We have to be self-aware to manipulate ourselves into belief in the first place, and then we have to abandon all self-awareness to allow that belief to breathe, if only for the span of a moment. It's a state I have thus far found comparable to states of prayer, meditation, inspiration, intoxication and what many Western religions refer to as the Holy Spirit. Even the Old Testament God chimes in on the subject: אהיה אשר אהיה (if, by "the subject," you mean this bizarre set of connections I've been attempting to make).

So best of luck with finding your tao in all things. And don't stick your head in a tiger's mouth, ever, much less make a career out of it.

Live Free or Die Hard or Make Something People Will Love

Yeah, okay. I caved yesterday and saw it. Sometimes the lowest common denominator appeals to me, I confess. At present I'm reading about the creation of A Streetcar Named Desire, from the debut production through the Kazan film, and I'm blown away by how viscerally Brando lived during his twenties. I feel as though I've positively wasted the last decade of my life (though perhaps retained a bit more cleanliness in general), and last night I wasted two more hours of it. If Brando had had action movies, would they have helped slake some of his youthful lust and mischief? Probably not. And, while on the subject, would I have felt more fulfilled by two hours of casual sex, a la Marlon? Probably not.

Then again, an acting class might not have been a complete waste of my time.

It's a strange stew I prepare for you today, seasoned with Desire, Die Hard and day-job interruptions. (Best part about being back: Time for 'bloggage. [Ability to pay for groceries also ranks high on the list.]) I was greeted when I sat to email today by an unaccustomed missive (stop it, jerk) by an unusual email from Friend Anna. She writes:

"I'm writing my paper on creativity, and was fielding thoughts with some people on the matter. ... What is creativity? What does it mean to be creative? (Are there certain characteristics you think of?) [And, is it a matter of inborn characteristics or influenced by upbringing and social environment? Is it innate talent or something that can be learned? Some scholars propose it is simply a matter of skills learned through hard work, a matter of motivation and discipline, not that anyone is innately more creative (genius) than anyone else. That is, it's conscious effort, they don't believe in it coming from unconscious.]"

I know so many people in school right now. It really does make them smarter. Is that an effect of age? Because, God knows, school didn't seem to make anyone smarter the last time I was in it. The most reasonable thing to do before responding to such questions would be to define my terms, terms such as "creativity," "genius" and "it." But as John McClane teaches us, it isn't reason that makes America so great; it's a willingness to do viciously risky and self-aggrandizing stunts involving the maximum amount of property damage. In that spirit, I dive right in.

First of all, let's release the concept of "artistry" from this discussion. Great artistry is its own creature, a thing born from arduous study, disciplined work and having a craft or technique. It's great, I love it, and maybe no great work can be great without it. Fine. But in our interests today we're exploring the nature of creativity, not artistry.

I would separate "creativity" from "genius." To my mind, creativity is a quality all possess. In a spiritual context, I believe it is our awareness of having been created (and not necessarily by an omnipotent deity--an awareness that we begin and end suffices) that compels us to emulate the process with our own actions, be this via child birth, entreprenurism or performance art. In a pragmatic context, I see a sense of creativity as one of the later stages of the evolution of intelligence. After one learns to perceive tools out of the objects around them, one may eventually come to refine such tools and create their own. In short, creativity to me is simply abstract thought, which some people take to greater extremes than others.

One interesting feature of abstract thought is the ability to conceive of concepts. (Is that redundant? John McClane wouldn't care. I don't care.) The real brain-twister is contemplating whether concepts are of themselves spontaneous creations on our part, similar to ancient peoples creating gods to explain the bits of the world they couldn't better understand, or master. In other words, have we created the concept of, say, love, in order to explain (or at least name) what seemingly illogical and irrational forces make us act like absolute idiots. Me, I tend to discount the notion of spontaneous creation. I am a fan of the law of conservation of energy, and believe that kind of balance applies to a great deal of reality. Similarly, for example, I agree that there are a finite number of stories in the world, and we just seem to create new ones by recombining, deconstructing and re-conceiving these few. To put it still another way, we are all inspired in our "creations" by everything that already is, around and within us. To this end, I don't really believe in genius, per se. There is no great, mysterious inborn gift that is only bestowed upon a few.

Then again, when I was faced with Michaelangelo's David (and listen: photographs will never express this work), not a force in the world could have convinced me it wasn't the result of genius.

Not even John McClane killing a helicopter with a car.

So my overall opinion is this: The magic of the original Die Hard had a lot to do with where the star was at that point in his career (spunky with something to prove, because he was an acknowledged television star but not by any means celebrated) and where the director was coming from (John McTeirnan tells us on the commentary that he wanted to find the joy in this otherwise harrowing tale). There's a synergy to it that came from taking risks and improvising, something that could never hope to be duplicated in a sequel. When A Streetcar Named Desire was brought to film, it brought together the Stanley from the Broadway cast and the Blanche from the London cast, and it should have exploded. Brash, method Brando set off against Lady Olivier (Vivien Leigh) seems a formula for an insane working environment. Yet it worked beautifully, and it never would have happened if the rules had been followed or sense had prevailed.

Whether it really exists or not, the creative person needs to believe in genius. Maybe, in looking back on a creation, we can readily name its sources and the whole thing seems like a masterminded manipulation of common elements. Yet the feeling of creating something good, of being in a creative spirit, isn't like that. It's a chartless territory, a blank page or a silent room. People often ask authors where they get their ideas from, and it's easy to say, "Oh, I was a closeted homosexual who grew up in the south, so . . . you know . . . ." I believe that it's belief that ideas come from. Creativity springs from a confrontation of nothingness with faith in that intangible genius that we can never prove, but that always intervenes.

. . . Eventually. Yippie-kiy-yay . . .

Extra-Special Birthday Edition!!!

No, no, no. It's not my birthday. Not yet, anyway. It is, rather, that time of year around which all of my friends have selfishly decided to arrange their birth dates. Let's get organized here, people! Couldn't we spread them out just a little more, and maybe make them a little less immediately-after-Christmas? I swear, it's like the holidays begin for me a marathon of gift-giving every year. And I forget more birthdays than I remember! Totally; totally. I'm awful. You have to be known by me for, like, at least ten years before I start saying to you: "Wait. Wait. Isn't your birthday some time this month?"

Case in point: My adopted brother (adopted by me, that is), "Anonymous," just had his thirtieth last Friday, and I failed to plan for it. Granted, I didn't hear about the party until about a week beforehand, but I should have been better prepared all the same. I should have realized the significance of this year and--when A Lie of the Mind schedule conflicts were being arranged--included March 23rd as a no-go date for rehearsal. Alas, I did not, and so missed the digging of the shin.

I can be short-sighted like that, but it's also possible that I'm in denial. Anonymous' birthday kicks off the birthday schedule for my troika of oldest friends, affectionately dubbed by my mother as "The Three Musketeers." Anonymous is in March, I in June and Mark chimes in in August (It is August, right, buddy? [Man. Do I suck.]). This year, we are thirty. Ye Gods, the wonder of a round number.

It may not be wonderful, or even wondrous, yet the turning over of another decade of this life makes for some serious reflection. Even eschewing the coincidental little deadlines I set for myself at a very sage 21 years of age (see 2/5/07), Year Thirty holds some significance for me. It holds significance in the universal subconscious as well. Jesus is widely believed to have begun his ministry in earnest 'round about that year of his life. Hamlet is often interpreted to be just thirty when he begins contemplating his readiness. And, of course, there was that hit television extravaganza that took the airwaves by storm for about a season and a half. My hope had been to celebrate my thirtieth year since kicking and screaming into this world in Italia, busking in Piazza Navona, Roma. As time inexorably jogs forward, however, the prospect of that trip grows slimmer and slimmer. Nigh anorexic. Leaving me with the question: What, then, can I do to celebrate whatever it is I am and do on that very special day?

I put it out to the universe. But it is not for this reason I 'blog at you today. Nor is it to point up the bizarre nature of an actor's schedule as it relates to his ever-patient friends (i.e., "Sure, I'll be in your wedding. That is, if I don't get a gig. Even if I get a gig, I'll try to get off, of course. Of course, if it's tech week or a performance there's nothing I can do. But count me in! Maybe..."). No, I am compelled to write today because of other people's birthdays, and the potential artistry in honoring them.

Consider all the people you've known in the course of your life. Consider not even everyone, but just those people you've held a conversation with more than once. There are probably a whole lot more than 365 at this point (not to presume too much upon the age of my [5] readers or anything). So there is the potential that every day of the year, someone you've known is celebrating his or her self; indeed, on some days, more than one is. How many people do you not speak to anymore, who are turning a year over at this moment? How many have you forgotten entirely who might be remembering you attending their sixth birthday, right now? And just what the hell is my point?

Well, I find it humbling to contemplate this. It reminds me that every day we make a choice to honor the people we've loved and who've loved us with our actions, or to not. UU's believe in the interconnectedness of all living things, and when it comes to other people, we're supposed to respect that particular interconnectedness even more. Similar to a bunch of actors on stage at a given moment, we all have to depend on each other for things to turn out right. It's frightening. It's awesome. We have to take it for granted somewhat just to get by, not panic or become mad with power. But every once in a while, it's good to be reminded how things really are.

You say it's your birthday? Well it's my birthday too; yeah. Happy birthday to you . . .

Don't Lie to Your Mind. It's Unkind.

Yet we all do it. Why? Why should it be so difficult to resist deceiving ourselves? I suppose it has something to do with hope. We need a certain instinct for imaginative creation just to get by, to hypothesize and perceive long-term rewards. This is part of what helped us as a species get to where we are today, the ability to imagine ourselves happier if:

• We kill a mastodon instead of a grass rat;
• We take a little longer to find a sharper rock to skin it with; and
  
• We avoid killing Ghlugg every time he does that stupid interpretive dance thing.

Sure, it's become more abstract in recent eons. It's not so much about immediate survival, hence the emphasis on the idea of hope. Things are bad now? Don't likey the president? Hatey your job? Have hope, lil' soldier! Hope's good for what ails you.

And relatively speaking (or writing), as long as your hope-o-meter (or fiction-o-gramme, for you Europeans) is in fairly regular interaction with the outside world, you get helpful feedback. Helpful in the sense of:

• Hey! You are a little more awesome than that. Don't dress so poorly.
• Hey! That may look an awful lot like a good thing to eat, but those in the know know it will eventually kill you.
• Hey! You can not fly, no matter how much you want to. Step away from the ledge. Step away . . .

Not so much, when it comes to one's internal imagination system. Hope has a much more enhanced ability--nigh mutagenic, one might say--to polymorph into utter falsity. Anyone read the report of Gingrich confessing his extramarital affair, which occurred during Lewinskygate? Holla back, Newt! Holla back. Did he perceive the moral loophole afforded him by his religious views, or was it a subconscious struggle? We may never know. What we do know is that not one of us is without self-deception on some level, so we may not throw the first stone. Even if he did totally project his own self-hatred on someone with more responsibility. Even if it turned him into the same kind of liar he railed against in those halcyon days. And even if I do say, "Jehovah."

Don't worry guys: I'm only bringing this up because of the title of the play I'm working on now. Yep. And yes, sometimes there is a strange, coincidental reflection between the show one is working on and one's own life. But that's just superstition. And yeah, fate does make fools of us all, and the Oracle can not be broken, and all that, but I'm sure my life is going to be just peachy no matter what portents come my way. And--though this may seem something of a non-sequitor--someday I'll be Batman. Yep. Uh-huh . . .