Orestes, Electra, and a Messenger Walk in to a Bar.

Today was probably the shortest day of grad school that will ever occur.  Ever.  I think everyone was a little thrown off before savagely attacking sweet, sweet freedom like a pack of starving hounds on the scent of a fleeing rabbit.

We started off with Niky training at oh-nine-hundred, as is the norm in Friday mornings before being dispersed to our own devices while a few of us were wiring to be summoned by Ulla to work on our Greek monologues.

I'm working on Orestes from The Libation Bearers where he's recounting the plan to murder Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.  I love me some Orestes.  That's a fact.  The house of Atreus is all-around pretty awesome as far as ancient Greek drama goes, but Orestes and Apollo set the tone for modern law.  You really can't get much better than that.

I've been trio-ed with Toni Ann (whom I posted about yesterday) and Ethan "Win" Nguyen (who is a stud, pay attention, ladies).  Toni Ann is working on Titular Electra by Sophocles and Ethan has been working on a monologue from Euripides' Acelestes and stands in as the apogee of awesomeness as Pylades... a friend of the house.  Ulla had us set an empty stage with some random items to play with and commence exploring the space, text, and each other; working through each piece in turn.  I have to say this now: beware of caps...

THIS IS WHAT I CAME HERE FOR!!!

Seriously, this is what I've been waiting on.  Don't get me wrong, so far all of the professors have been incredibly warm, generous, and insightful, but this... THIS is my flavor right here.  We work a little bit (by that I mean I pretend to be Orestes and deliver some poetry); then she says "Stop!"; breaks down some real amazing, simple ideas and then says, "Go."; and we're off again, working, working, working, "Stop!"; and then we repeat the process.  This is my flavor.  I worked like this with Sveta at Cal State, Fullerton.  After that experience, it's the only way I ever want to work in lab.  It is sort of what I expected the entirety of the program to be like, but I am still so excited about what happened today.  Ulla is brilliant.  I mean, truth nuggets fall, fully formed, from her mouth and into your brain.  It is incredible.  I was watching her work with Toni Ann and Ethan (who are incredible, in case you were wondering) after she had finished up with me, and all I could think about is, "I need to work with this woman as much as possible over the next three years.  I want to be her acting-child."  I might be a little in love, I dunno.

That's all for tonight!  It's Friday, and that means I'm taking the weekend off from writing, so look back here Monday for more updates on how things are progressing.  There should be some ripe thought after Larry's added class tomorrow morning and a very special gathering of dudes from the class for "Bro-toberfest" at the Bohemian Hall Beer Garden tomorrow night.


“Success is transient, evanescent. The real passion lies in the poignant acquisition of knowledge about all the shading and subtleties of the creative secrets.”
-Constantin Stanislavski


Until Monday!

-R

DeNoble. (Imagi-ninja)

Today was a stressful day.  For quite a while this afternoon, I was fretting having to come home and write about it because I really didn't want to relive it for you in front of my computer screen.  Much of what I was planning on revolved around the idea of teaching and terror as a tool to accomplish that goal...  I'll leave it at that.

I hadn't slept much last night.  This is an admission: I may have done a little too much blogging (re:journaling) last night.  There.  I said it.  After class today my sole purpose in life was to get home as fast humanly and MTA-ingly possible and enact Operation: Nap Time (which was a resounding success), but I found myself falling in to my usual pattern of engaging in a little verbal horseplay on the way to fetch things out of my locker.  I ended up in a conversation with Ms. Toni Ann DeNoble.  She's an actor in my class, and she's spectacular.

On a quick tangent:  I did the exercise in Larry's class that I had posted about earlier this week with Toni Ann and made a comment to her about having three fully-grown imaginations.  Seriously, the woman in imagining on planes of existence that only three-year-olds can fully harness, such is the power of her imagination.  It's a flabbergasting thing to see.  It's a little like being a ninja in ninja school and watching one of your fellow student-ninjas ninja-sword fight with her feet... and win.  It's ninja-impressive.

Back to the conversation: we had gotten involved in a conversation about the concept of age and what it means to people.  I found that she's of  like mind with me, where it becomes an annoyance to be constantly asked, "How old are you?"

I, for my part, have a bit of fun with this, and generally don't share right away with people my true count of sun-revolutions because, to me, it becomes an instant label to be confined in.  In my life, it's almost always one of the first questions asked when meeting some one.  It's like being sorted for future reference.  Ideas are formed and my personality gets assigned weights based on measures of other people, rather than just being allowed to have someone learn about who I am the old-fashioned way.  It's almost like:

Name: Jim
Age: 34
Political: Conservative
Religion: Mormon
Marital: Married
Children: Yes
Job: Dentist
Education: College Graduate; Dental school
... and so on and so forth

And, yes, these things come up; and, yes, they do define us, but there can be certain judgements that arise when certain other factors don't add up to a person's age.  There's an assessment based on someone else's standards, like when you hear that there's a woman who's thirty-six that's never been married/no kids and is a manager at a watch store in the mall in the town she grew up in.  You might think to yourself, "What's wrong with her?  She should be doing a lot better for herself at thirty-six."  I find that it's usually people in their fifties and people younger than their early twenties that tend (to me, at least) to assign so much significance to this number.  The 50+ like to remind me about how I'm not married (because that's a fail, right) and how "much more" they had accomplished by the time they were my age.  By people not old enough to drink in bars, I'm, "Old-as-shit, dude.", before I get assaulted with a litany of things that this person is going to do to be in a much better place when they reach my age.

This was essentially the nature of the conversation, and how this one little piece of information can so quickly define you in the eyes of others.  It's such an inconsequential thing.  It's nothing to be ashamed of, and yet it becomes the heavily-guarded secret by someone like myself, and as I discovered, Toni Ann, because you want people to know who you are and what you're about before offer them a little nugget of information that can help them make a snap decision.  It's like a way of respecting yourself... maybe.  Besides, isn't it much more exciting what you can learn about a person when you don't ask the expected questions?  Anyway, that's the philosophy behind it, and one that we both, I found, share.  I was so rapt in our chat, that I opted to take the train home (which adds an extra 20 minutes on to my commute to Astoria from the Upper West Side, just so I could squeeze in about ten extra minutes of brilliant conversation with her.  It was good.

I had discovered myself thinking while listening to Zarif today in Andrei's class that I really do enjoy the faces of the people who I get to share these next three years with.  I mean, they have some really excellent, look-worthy faces; and thanks to these great little accidental moments with Toni Ann, I get to appreciate what goes on behind the faces that I'm coming to adore so much.

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To continue to honor Anika's demand for "More Photos!", here's a picture of some faces back from collaboration weekend.  Tonia Ann, sadly, whom this post has been titled for is not present, but you can see for yourself some of the look-worthy faces that I mentioned earlier.  Aren't they a good-looking group!?!?  Also, this should please Sheyenne who constantly reminds me that I don't give her the attention she deserves.

"I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery."
- Rene Descartes 


Doo zee Fool!


-R

Hubris, The Gods & You.

We had a really great discussion in Niky's class today about the recurring motifs and values of Greek drama.  Chief amount them, hubris defined by Merriam-Webster as "exaggerated pride or self-confidence", for those of you that may have never had cause to either study Greek drama or frequently utilized the word.  I rarely accuse people of being hubristic, anyway.

Many of you may know, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include it for the people who may be reading and may not know, but we get the philosophy of 'moderation in all things' from our Classical Grecian friends (among many other ideas, like democracy, pillars, bath-houses and the Olympics), but I'll save them for you to read, because, let's face it, if you spent much time learning things from me, the world wouldn't be an entirely safe place to live.  You should really fear the day when I'm able to teach at a collegiate level.  We as a class turned to define hubris as any excessive behavior which causes pride and borders on obsession. You can look at the cliché example of hubris in Oedipus Rex; we opted to take a different route and cite examples of hubris in the contemporary zeitgeist.  Sophie mentioned the film All the King's Men wherein the character Jack Burden receives an education on power and its temptation to corrupt.   She had inferred that Willie Stark had been exercising in hubris, which led to his downfall.  I wished to instance (but couldn't... our conversations move very quickly) both the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven and Herman Melville's Moby Dick, specifically the scene where Bailian de Ibelin rejects Princess Sybilla's offer to murder Guy de Lusignan, marry her and rule over Jerusalem and maintain her departed brother's peace with the Saracens; and the section where Captain Ahab reveals his intentions for the whale that took his leg and unmasted his ship, and inspires his men to heave their superstitions about the creature and summon him, repeatedly,  by name, "Moby Dick."  Both characters to me represent obsessions that lead not only to their own destruction, but the loss of innocent lives that they have sworn to protect.  Bailian wishes to maintain his perfect honor as a knight and loses Jerusalem the lives of many of her citizens and the possibility of maintaining a peace with Saladín (I should mention that despite using historical figures, this movie is utterly fiction, but so... so good) and Ahab loses his ship, his life, and the lives of his crew (save Ishmael) to the whale he single-mindedly pursues for revenge.  Both, I think are glittering examples of hubris.

Sheyenne brought up Kanye West and his ability to let his excessive ego shine at a whim... sometimes infamously, which prompted us to discuss both his apparent faults, the American obsession with celebrity and it's self-infatuation with the American dream (definitely a discussion in it's own right) before the conversation turned to her representation of the goddess Aphrodite in her monologue from the play Hippolytus.  It was argued that the gods were themselves capable of hubris as was apparent when Aphrodite sacrifices her follower Phaedra to impose her divine will on Hippolytus who has sworn to remain chaste.  The goddess in the play does seem to be rather prideful, but, to me, I believe that the gods of ancient Greece are exempt from hubris for a very specific reason, which thanks to the forum here, I would like to contend with you now:


I, for my part, am under the conclusion that the gods must be absolved from flaws such as hubris because the gods are, at heart, an abstraction.  Aphrodite is the manifestation of Love; Thanatos the manifestation of Death;  Poseidon the manifestation of Water; Demeter, the Harvest; Ares, War; Artemis, the Hunt; Hephaestus, Crafting; and so on and again.  They embody a concept, and they have no choice but to represent it fully, immortally, with no opportunity to amend or withdraw.  It would be unjust to punish a creature for an act that they have no choice but to take, for the gods have no free will.  They exist by design, specifically human design.  Our design.  They exist to bring beauty, meaning and poetry into the world.  The Greeks saw all of nature on two levels: the sun could shimmering of the surface of a rippling stream, which they would see, but would also perceive the dancing of water-nymphs. Think about it, that's visual poetry and a magnificent thing (and, unfortunately, something arresting that beloved science has robbed us of, and replaced with it's own elucidation).  The gods are meant to instruct and inspire man, but we are not creations of the gods, they are our creations and therefore cannot be, must not be, subject to the same rules that govern, laud and damn us.

Time (or Chronos, if you're still a follower of the old gods) had cut our conversation short and left some of our ideas stunted on the vine.  It did give me some things to consider about religion as a whole over the break, which out of respect for brevity, I'll not share at the moment; but I would like to ask you, reader, what you think?  Especially if you're in the class and were apart of this burgeoning topic of conversation!

Sound off and leave your comments below, or in the comments section on the Facebook link.


     ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on th'other. . . .

Macbeth Act 1, scene 7. 25–28


If not now, when?


-R

Winter is Coming.

The title of my post are the words of house Stark in A Song of Ice and Fire, which was my Summertime obsession.  I was just getting into the Dunk & Egg novellas when the semester started and I can feel them staring at me from my desk every time I enter my room.  The only words I have to express how much I want to sneak some time in to finish them is... WINTERFELL!!!

"Did you say, 'Winterfell'?"  -Gendry

"No.  I said, 'Go to hell."  -Arya

I told you I was obsessed...

But as the title of the post suggests, Winter is, in fact, coming.  Fall is so heavy upon us that I'm filled with the excitement of the promise of cooler weather and a little precipitation... if only for the excuse to wear hoodies.  Here in NYC the humidity prevents me from donning my favorite garment for a little less than half the year.  NorCal spoiled me with the ability to rock a hoodie anytime, anywhere.  Everyday I check Google weather and I get a little bit more excited.

What really interests me about the Winter is that when it snows here, it snows.  People tend to huddle together a bit more and hunker down with their favorite friends and coworkers to survive the sleet and cold.  As we were in Andrea's class today, I took a look around the wonderful faces that I get to daily share a circle with and realize that these are the people that I'm truly excited to hunker down with.  People keep saying, "The honeymoon is over.", but I feel that now that everyone is settling in to the groove.  There's a lot to learn still about each other and whether deep in the basement of Schapiro or in the lofty towers of Riverside Church we are going to be given a truly first-class chance to do it.  There's something really magical about the winters here in the city, and I'm excited to share it with my classmates.

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."  -Eddard Stark, A Game of Thrones.

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I have another blog cooking right now about Gods and hubris and some ideas formulated today on both subjects in Niky Wolcz's class, but I'm deciding to let it simmer for a bit longer and aim for the scheduler to upload it tomorrow morning (in an effort to catch better traffic to the page).  So this is it for now.  You can thank Kevin Johnston for admitting to me that my general post length is far too long.  He tells me he's happy with about a paragraph before he navigates away.

In other blog related news, I was talking the blog game with Anika Chapin, whose wonderfully charming blog, Bloggledygook, can be found by clicking the link, earlier this evening (posting, stats, format, etc.) and she said, "More pictures!"  So to honor her request, here is a picture of Sir Charles of Wumpus, one of my cats, who still resides in Sacramento, CA (Poor bugger).

Breathe in.  Breathe out.

-R

Brostoevski does the Fool.

"Every action is a preparation for another action."
- Livia Vanaver


Tuesdays are easily becoming my favorite day of the week.  Today only helps to solidify that fact.  Tuesday is generally a strictly physical day.  Gym in the morning; Stage Combat at 10:00a; Dance at 2:00p.  I sweat all day long.  Tuesday has become a day of physical cleansing; any flotsam that might be floating around the body is purged from the hold and the feeling is something spectacular.


We performed our first fight in class today.  Something definitely caught my attention today: even though every pair of people has the exact same list of moves to perform in the exact same order, the story of these scuffles is vastly different from group to group.  It goes to show you that it's the moments that happen in between major calamities are the ones can be really telling of who a person is, or what something is all about.

I shared this with Phillip earlier during the break.  It comes from John Carpenter's "They Live".  We were supposed to watch a fight scene from a film and report back on it.  I happen to be a firm believer that this is one of the most satisfying fights in all of cinema.  If you have six minutes and you haven't seen it before (or even if you haven't seen it recently) check it out.  It's staggeringly wondrous.


Dance is always a three-hour block of great release.  The quote at the top of the page is from Livia, our instructor, who is so full of life and compassion and excitement.  We cheer each other on in her class.  Here, you can truly also get a look into the minds and souls of the people you watch because it really is unadulterated liberation.  Kevin and I are seriously talking about taking up ballet because of it.  And it's something that I've never really actually considered... but back to the quote above, it's so applicable to everything in life.  I am here; I'm going there, but I can't go there until I'm done here; after I go there, I can continue on further.  You may be thinking to yourself, "Yeah, dude.  That's causality.  Your ex-sciencey ass should know about it."


But how often do we really stop to consider where we are?  Once... maybe eight times a day?  Truly stop to consider where you are right now.  Take it in.  Is it hot?  What's around you?  How did you get here to this computer screen?  How do you feel about it?  How do you feel?  Where are you going after this?  I know in my advancing years that I have come to take many of these things for granted, the moments that happen in between the major occurrences of the day, but Tuesdays are becoming a day where I can truly appreciate a good majority of these moments, even the frustrating ones... and especially the ones where Phillip and I grind the hell out of the gym.  It's Bro-bonding at it's finest.  Respect.


It may have occurred to you, if you've been keeping up to date on posts, that a recurring theme has been one of introspection and analysis of the self: specifically myself.  There has been several moments where I have questioned a lot of my choices in my inter-relationships with some of my new class-mates and whether or not they really get me and if it's worth keeping up some of the tom-foolery that I get up to.  It's an escutcheon for stress and a great way for me to deflect from frustration.  This I know, yet I realize here, now, that no matter if it's been "working" or not; no matter if there's been anyone that I may have turned off; no matter what has happened in these four (immensely long) short weeks, there is always something to improve.  Often times there are many things to improve, but every action is a preparation for another action.  All of what's happened prior to now does not matter.  Not in this moment, because I'm here... and I'm thrilled and contented... and I know where I'm going.




"The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month." 
- Fyodor Dostoevski


Doo Zee Fool!


-R

Touché.

We had this really interesting exercise in Larry Singer's class this morning.  Last monday we were instructed to think about a room that we had not been in for at least seven years.  That was our homework, to think about a room; nothing more.  I had chosen the living room of the house that I grew up in back on Carrwood Street in the suburbs of Sacramento.  It's been about 12 years since I've been there, but I figured that since I had spent a good amount of time in there, and it had he'd some pretty amazing memories of some good family times that it would be a fairly easy room to talk about.  I hadn't put much thought in to the room over the week (which I can't really feel bad about, because that, too, was a part of the assignment).

The exercise was essentially this.  We were to wander the studio space with five other people (in our own exclusive worlds) and examine the rooms as we remembered them.  If you're curious, yes, there was some mime involved.  What I discovered was that though I could remember the layout of the room (where furniture was placed, entrances and windows, that sort of thing) I couldn't remember the finer details of the room: where pictures hung and what they were, what knick-knacks were on the shelves, generally smaller items.  As I was exploring this vaguely remembered room from my past something clicked in, I remembered the feel, the texture of the love seat; and then the wall; the grating of the central heater; the feel of the kitten-destroyed spines of shelves of LPs; the feel of the lacquer on the record player's wooden exterior; the roughness of the short-shag carpet; the feel of the crank as I opened the window and the sound that it made.  As all of these things were occurring to me the room suddenly came into a very sharp focus.  I could clearly remember everything about this room that I haven't though about since I had last set foot in it circa 1999.  It was like a gate was opened in my mind and there was a deluge of sense-filled memories of this place of my childhood.  It was fantastic.  Other things became more clear to me; sounds and smells became accessible to me, I was looking at an entertainment center and something would knock and a new time that should have already been there would pop in to existence.

I learned today that the sense of touch holds for me far more information than my sense of vision.  Things started to make sense in the sense that I have never considered myself to be a visual thinker.  I've often had conversations with people where someone will bring up a strange or gross topic and someone else would say something like, "Dude! C'mon, I don't want to picture that!"

I can picture things, but I've always been more interested in the weight of the sound or the specificity of the word... the feel of it as I slowly roll it around in my mouth than the image it evokes.  The image was always an after-thought.  I've always figured that kinesthetic learning was one of the easiest ways to take something in, though I never really said to myself, "No, I can't learn it that way, I have to get my hands on it."  Something else sprang to my mind as I was working over this rather epiphanic realization.  I rarely allow others to touch me.  I almost hate, hate, hate being touched.  The more comfortable I am with someone, the more I relax in to it, but I really feel harried when someone makes contact with me unexpectedly... I guess it's mostly people I consider to be strangers, but if I learn and experience more through the sense of touch, what a great deal of experience I must be missing out on by not allowing that information from a person to pass in to me.

Something to think on, I suppose.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.

-R

Science.

It's been a while since I've made a post, but with this sexy new computer, I admit to you, my dear friend-reader, that I no longer have any excuse to not barrage you with bloggy thoughts.

I grew up in a non-religious household.  My mom was a non-practicing Catholic and my father was rather lax Mormon.  It was once explained to me that the spawn of such a union wasn't really welcome in either faith (an opinion that, strangely, has since been retracted).  There was a god just like there was an Easter Bunny, but we didn't really "find" religion until my teenage years.  My more formative years were spent with something much more digestible to my young mind.  I'd like to share it with you now; ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...


THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD:
Ask a question.
Perform background research.
Compose a hypothesis.
Experiment against the hypothesis.
Analyze data and draw a conclusion to the validity of the hypothesis.
Communicate data.


To this day, I still label myself a scientist.  I'm not spending my time reverse engineering dinosaurs out of chicken embryos or developing ways to communicate natural light to underground parks or working out constants for how mass bends space/time... I'm acting.  Just in case you're new to this blog... that's way I'm up to; that's what this is about, but I consider acting to be a social science; the study of the human condition with all sorts of delicious variables.   The rehearsal space has become, to me, a laboratory for exactly what we (humans) are capable of in varying circumstances and a way to examine the consequences of the actions one might take in a safe environment.  Also, it's a great way to meet women.

There are all sorts of tools to employ when doing this sort of work, you may be familiar (if not a BELIEVER!) in one or more of them.  These tools come from Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Strasburg, Meisner, Adler, Alexander... the list goes on and on.  In my youth, I had always had a distaste for Method Acting.  I always got a sort of sick feeling when hearing the pushers peddle their mystical wares.  It never took.  It wasn't until Sveta introduced me to Stanislavski's System and explained to me the fundamental differences between the System and the Method that I went, "Aha!  Now I see."  A light switch had been turned on in my mind, and had ignited a fire in my soul.  So yes, if my body were a house, it would be a really kitch one with a light-switch fireplace.  "This is science!", I said to myself.  Observation.  Test: does this work?  No?  Reformulate.  Simplify.  Eradicate the superfluous circumstances.  WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!?!?!?  I was addicted...  I should mention that I don't look down on other methods; everyone has their own flavor, this is mine.  It's delectable.

Lately, I keep getting these warnings:  "It's going to get tough."; "Honeymoon's going to be over soon."; "Blah, blah, blah, negativity, blah."

"Bring on the challenge!", I say, "The 'honeymoon' is the breath before the plunge, and, let's face it, negativity is the aegis of the weak-willed; leave it at home."

Now we, the class, are here to learn.  That's a fact.  I strongly urge you to try to find someone within the group that came here for something other than the pursuit of additional knowledge and a greater understanding.  There might be some other influencing factors in an individual's "Top 5", but I seriously doubt in my heart of hearts that anyone is dropping a few hundred grand on ego alone.  I do have faith in that.  I very well could be wrong (which is always exciting).  Despite all these warnings and heraldings of the doom-time, what has become to me, in these last two weeks, the largest obstacle is the sense that there is a "way" to do things.  A single, solitary way.  My only interest is that whatever path is chosen, it leads to the truth (preferably in he most economical way possible).  I have born witness to several instances recently where "truths" are reached in hurried and unrefined ways, whether it be the opinion of a teacher making some harsh criticisms about the quality of that student's character after failing to observe that he followed a command to take a half a step forward; the classmate who railroads an other classmate over how to approach a project because he/she KNOWS how to go about it; or the girl in the bar after class who makes broad statements to a person she just met based on the actions that she's observed other people perform, coming to  a hard "theory" of human nature and, perhaps, the basic understanding of the self and the projection that has to occur to justify the understanding.  There is a faith in these things.  I call it faith because it is a concept that goes unexplored or is questionably underdeveloped.  I wrote earlier in this very paragraph that I had faith that there was not a soul in my class that was an ego-maniacal asshole.  I'm not without it.  I also said my faith could be misplaced.

Now, I'm not calling in to question the theories of Kristin or Andrei or anyone else on staff.  As I said, I'm here to learn.  That's the point.  It is my hope, and thus far my opinion based on observation, that, even now, personal philosophies that bear the names of these people are malleable; in a state of flux.  They may vibrate ever so exiguously around a certain frequency, but the foundation is there.   The product still feels accesible.  But, outside of that, there are these slights to my beloved science which create an environment where no experimentation can occur.

I, as I imagine you do, have this strong sense that most of the things that I "know" are true.  After all, they've gotten me this far, they can't be so bad, yet there is an understanding that personal truth is perception and perception is subjective.  If I wander into an opportunity where a truth is confronted and threatened, I usually have two clear and immediate choices:

1) take a defensive stance; or
2) question, observe, and experiment.

I was reading an article earlier this week that at CERN there is evidence on file that muon->tao neutrinos had arrived in Gran Sasso roughly 60 nanoseconds earlier than they ought to have.  Big deal?  Yeah, because it means that they were traveling faster than light, which is IMPOSSIBLE!!!  At least that's what I thought.  I scoffed into my morning oatmeal, "Fools!  How dare you question Einstein!"  I was defensive.  Then I started to think, "There's a problem here somewhere... obviously."  Then I got excited, "Does this mean time-travel is possible without the aid of an 'I'm going to crush everything ever conceived- size (massive) object?   What does this mean for causality?  Did physics just die?"  Everything that I knew was true about the physical world just fell apart in front of me at breakfast.  But truth is perception and perception is subjective... always, and I was reminded that I'm not above it.  It got me thinking about outcomes to our little problems in the acting class.

Outcomes may tend to show that one perception is true and the other false, but more often than not that both are true, yet unrefined as to show a deeper truth, OR most excitingly, that neither truth is true and that both need to be set aside in order to find the truth (but with a partner scientist!)  What I'm getting at is that there have been some not fully open minds within the program that I've come across... hold on a second.

Statement:

I am not perfect, but just as I challenge you to find a person who is not truly in my class to learn, I challenge you to find a time, when I'm not willing to put something; anything; everything to the test.  If you catch me, not only will I get wide-eyed enthusiastic about what you are telling me that you feel I am unwilling to examine, but I will also buy you a coke (or other reasonably interchangeable beverage of your choosing). 

That being said, I had been left perplexed by certain instances where the chance to develop ideas and examine the status quo have been brushed aside in an effort to "get it right".  I was left aggravated that I was hearing that something is "wrong" without getting chance to live and experience "wrong" for myself.  Michael Jordan once said, "I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying."  I couldn't agree more.  Also... look at me quoting athletes!

So I am left with questions:  Will this change?  Will I grow to fight it more feverishly?  Will that go over well?  Can I be diplomatic about it?  Am I wrong to question it?  Are science and art so estranged from each other?  Will I look back on this post one day and laugh at my own naiveté?  Breathe them in; breathe them out.  That is, after all, why I'm here, right?  Questions, questions, questions.  Or as I have accepted it to be... Step 1) Ask a question.


I think I have plenty of time to perform the necessary background research.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.

-R

Talen.

I ordered a computer of my own last night.  Hopefully I'll be able to update this thing as much as I'd like.  I feel like there are just sooooooo many thoughts running through my head that simply deserve to be immortalized in blog form for your viewing pleasure.  It's a strange thing, thoughts grow stale when they go unwritten and they don't seem worthy of the keystrokes needed to put them to the virtual page.

I go to school with some pretty amazing and inspiring people.  I thought tonight might be a good opportunity to introduce you to some of the characters that will more than likely be reoccurring herein.  I mentioned in one of my first posts that the bromance that has developed within The Fourteen is a beautiful thing.  Sleep soundly knowing that it only continues to grow in new and amazing ways.

I'm working on a scene from "True West" right now with Mr. Andy Talen.  He's from Wisconsin, which seems to produce some of my favorite actor-people (Zack Kraus, anyone).  We've started off with a little Sam Shepard intensive for Andrei Serban's class, and I wanted to tackle this for a few reasons:

1) It's an exploration in brotherhood.  Being an only child, I don't have much experience with actual brothers.
2) And this is why I love grad school, I get to go against type and not play the dweeby writer, but the older, drunker, larcenous bully-brother.  Fun times.

But back to Andy, I like this dude a lot... I may even love him (and as they say here on the East Coast, "No homo.")  Not only is the dude tremendously genuine, but incredibly generous as well.  I had harbored some fears that coming and working with people in an environment with a bunch of over-achieving twenty-something actors might lead to some problems of ego... and it still might, just not here.  I left our rehearsal tonight feeling pumped on just doing the work.  For the first time in a long time, I really remembered why I fell in love with this particular craft in the first place.  There's really nothing like getting together with another artist, particularly one who holds some great talent and an open mind and a willingness to open up and experience and collaborate, and dive head first into a great scene.  Every time we finished a section we hopped right back into it, sometimes after a few words of concepts; thoughts; or ideas, but, still, hopped right back into it... enthused.  It all just clicked.  There's still plenty of work to be done, but I don't think that I could possibly feel any more confident going into Andrei's class tomorrow, and couldn't have drawn a better first partner to kick things off with.  So thank you, sir.

I am going to decompress by watching some Netflix for about a half an hour before tackling some last-minute revisions to a one page scene for Kristin and heading to bed.  I hope you are enjoying the blog.  If you have any questions, or anything you'd like to hear about, please leave them in the comments section below, or on my Facebook page.

-Nix

Funhouse Mirrors.

I should put it out there to you, dear reader, that I am sorry that I haven't had the opportunity to update this before today.  Life is a little hard in a low-tech world... lack of computational devices and such.

I had my first class with Kristin Linklater on Thursday, followed by a second on Friday.  Let me tell you this right now: when K. Link is involved, shit gets real - real quick.  And on a very, super-quick side note, when you are a world-hopping, mega-famous voice guru and you want to put it out there to your students that you wish to be viewed in a state of apotheosis, you teach class on the fifteenth floor of a bell tower in a cathedral that over looks the city and is about the same age as the country it resides in.  I'm not kidding. I'm not religious, but when the daylight comes pouring in the through the windows, I challenge anyone to say that they don't feel a little closer to God.

But I did promise a super-quick tangent, so now we're back.

Right away we were thrust into an exercise where we merely had to introduce to Kristin another member of our class.  Seems harmless enough, but it is, like all delicious things in this life, a test; an evaluation; a gauntlet.  What we found out, which should be obvious to anyone who has read Kristin's books or studied her philosophies of vocal production, is that there are physical blocks that we develop which inhibit our abilities to produce a more genuine, unadulterated sound.  Which led me to immediately think of a cheese cloth... because I think of cheese cloths, or a sieve!  Let's work with a sieve, a sieve of our own construction that keeps us from communicating effectively because the filter is indiscriminate.  We can only let so much out, because we only let so much in, and just that easily I knew I was already being led down a road that I knew that I would, during this three-year journey, be made to travel.

I want to take a quick break from this to just make a point of information:  Linklater would murder me dead if she ever read me using the pronoun "our" instead of "I", but let's face it, it's just good writing, and I'm going to go out on what appears to be an incredibly sturdy branch and posit that I'm not the only one here.  I mean, if I was, she wouldn't have a job, and I wouldn't get to go to church/class.

The Afore-mentioned Road.

Every artist has to really know himself (grammar-fail - sorry ladies, deal with it) in order to really communicate to the rest of the world, so the thought of getting through this process without some serious introspection and contemplation had never really crossed my mind, what interests me is this (and this is where I'm going to get personal, o.k. Kristin?  This one's for you.):  The face that I wear for others is not purely my own, it's a manufactured face, it's a face of my own delineation.  It is me and it isn't;  it's absolutely honest, and yet it's a grotesque: a manipulated visage which is at it's heart a coping mechanism.

I have in New York, what I consider to be a quintessential NYC survival tool:  The "Fuck You" Face.  This is the face that I like to think that New Yorkers, who really are generally incredibly friendly, helpful, and lovely people, put on whenever they step out into the city to get to one place or another to keep from being overrun by the perils that this "concrete jungle where dreams are made of" sometimes throws at you.  You put it on right before you walk out your door in the morning.  When you go to a friend's place, you merely hang it on a hook next to your hat, scarf and jacket, where you can pick it up for the journey home.  You might also have a "Work" Face, an "In-law" Face, and an "I-only-have-to-wear-this-face-for-another-three-hours-of-dealing-with-these-industry-assholes" Face.  They are facets of ourselves, but not necessarily our truest selves.

What I came face-to-face with Thursday afternoon on the fifteenth floor of the bell tower was the distorted reflection of myself, the reflection that I designed and that I recognize, truly, as me... because it is me; but at the same time, taking a step back and bringing the frame into focus, seeing that the glass is warped to show what I want to show, what I feel safe presenting to everyone - the cartoon caricature, made real.  I see "My" Face which is intended to be bold, belligerently over-confident and (please, Jesus) uplifting to those around me... because a calm, thoughtfully quiet introvert is no fun at a party.  But does that mask which keeps all of the naughty things out and, admittedly stands as an amazing control for life's daily change-ups, keep me from really relating to you how I really want to relate to you?

Yes.

This isn't mind-blowing, but after some thought, I realized that there was a deep hope in me that I could somehow work on the truest self underneath the antic, use it for the work, and then quickly don it again to continue facing the day.  Prostitution at it's finest, right?  But the mirror and the frame were there in front of me and I was faced not only with the reflection, but also of the possibility that it may simply not be possible, and I am faced with the notion that, even then, there are some truths that can be extraneous.  Scary-exhilarating stuff... the first step down a dark forest path that immediately takes a hard left into the thick.

That's that, and we continue to examine more each and every day.  Is it possible to be fully open, fully honest, and fully vulnerable to the world and maintain sanity?  Or does every good castle need it's walls?  I know that I certainly have my hard-earned opinions, but we'll see what tomorrow holds...


Breathe in.  Breathe out.

Now Sleep.

Swingset.

Yesterday we had our first day of classes.  You already may be thinking to yourself, "Wait a second, man.  This blog is already a week old.  You started classes yesterday?"

Yes.

FIGHT!!!

What better way to start off a three-year journey than sitting down with all of your new friends and talking about all of the ways that you are going to pretend to kill each other?  We kicked everything off with a group trek through the now rainy (Hello, Fall) streets of New York City to the studios uptown where we met up with our fight instructor, Joe Travers.  Here's something I should inform you of: normally I really fear stage combat people.  I often get the feeling that they were picked on a lot in their formative years and have turned to "almost violence" as a means to take out their pent-up aggression.  And usually they are more than slightly condescending assholes.  I once sat through a masterclass on combat where the instructor went on for over an hour about the importance of safety.  Not that bad you think?  Over half of it was him demonstrating (famously, if you've seen my re-enactment of the scene) of "Hospital/No Hospital", which was him standing like a soldier at attention with his hand in the air sicking his thumb out and in repeating, "Hospital/No Hospital."

Joe doesn't suffer from this affliction.  It's kind of amazing when you have an instructor who takes his job seriously, but still has a sense of humor.  I dig that.  And I'm really excited to pretend murder-kill Sheyenne Javonne Brown.  She was pissed that she didn't get a personalized shout-out in my first post... so there you go.

DANCE!!!

We closed out the first day of classes with Dance, instructed by Livia Vanaver of Vanaver Caravan.  I am not a dancer.  I always wished it was a skill that I possessed, but it's something that's never been really accessible to me.  There's another story about Taking It To The House that I'm going to have to share another time.  We talked a bit as a class about our experience with the dance and most of the men in the class were in the same position as myself where we collectively just don't feel very graceful.  Society doesn't really allow for it, which is a shame.  I guess I should say this: Parents, if your son wants to dance... let him, it's not that "gay" and it'll probably score him a slew of hot girlfriends if, in fact, that's what he's in to, so really... nobody loses.  Think about it.  The thing that was really brilliant about this particular three-hour period, and this is a credit to the bros as much as Livia and her brilliance in being supportive and creating a safe environment, is that about midway through everyone was just doing it, and what's more, looking good doing it.  The gracefulness that I certainly feel like I've never harnessed was there, it just needed a little love.  And it feels like being a kid, like when you're at the playground and you on the swings and jumping off at the height of the arc.  That moment right after you let go.  It's a little addicting.  And I can't wait for more.

ALL GOOD THINGS...

We finished Collaboration weekend last night as well.  It was brilliant to be done, truth be told; the week was long as hell.  The bonds that you can make with complete strangers when tasked with telling an engaging story in a short period of time is something else.  it's a little like going to war... or what I imagine what that would be like.  You just throw yourself in and trust that the guy next to you, even though you just met him, is going to have your back.  For those of you that were there that may be reading this, I am truly grateful for the experience and so looking forward to the next time we get to make it happen.  But in a little over an hour, the week of toil had come to a close; our right of passage was over and we stood amongst our peers and instructors, welcomed with open arms.

I imagine that if the excitement from these postings is not abundantly clear to you the reader, I should state it plainly, I am truly honored and blessed to be where I am right now, with these brilliant, wonderful and beautiful people.  I was thrust out on stage to vamp a bit while a lighting kink was worked out right at tthe top of the show, and I was able to tell them as much... which I'm thankful for.  For you, reader, I write this: if you ever find yourself in a position where you want to go to grad school for the arts, you should definitely come join us...

Magic happens here.

Language Barriers.

One of the most brilliant things about being part of a program such as this, is that your classmates tend, quite frequently, to not be from where you're from... nationally.

I've been given the chance to work with some truly amazing people from South Africa, Austria, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, China, Puerto Rico, (just to name a few) and parts elsewhere.

One of the things that I've heard mentioned by some of my new friends is the trouble of finding just the right words to express, in a foreign language, "what I mean."  The wonderful, truly wonderful, thing is that even amongst my fellow countrymen here there are still regionalisms and dialectical issues and matters of just finding the best way to express one's self.  And that's what we're here for!

For me it illustrated beautifully something that I myself had often had trouble to relating to other people.

"Why are you doing THEATER?  It seems like a waste of time.  There's no jobs; no money; NO HOPE FOR A FUTURE!!!!!!!!"

To that, I say this: I want to be here; I want to do this specifically because the work that we do here is breaking down the communicative barriers that separate the peoples of the world.  We are honing the tools.  We are aspiring to be one people and have one language, and nothing will be withholden from us which we purpose to do.  I realize that I might be sounding rather irreligious paraphrasing God, but the work that we are doing here is important.  It is direly important.

We all feel.  We all hurt.  We all love.  We all think.  What we don't often do is find a way to communicate those things effectively to one and other.   What I want to do is dedicate my life to adding the word "Together" to the end of the first four sentences of this paragraph, because that's the world that I want to live in.

Class time!

Content. Content. Content.

It turns out that it's a bit hard to update these things as much as I would like when you can't get in front of a computer.


And directly after walking through my door the past several nights has followed a very simple two-step process:


1) Climb in to bed.

2) Goodnight, Ladies.


So, what you're about to get is a slew of ideas formed over the past few days in the form of several posts over the next half an hour.  Enjoy

It's All Going So Well!!!

A quote from the mighty Jessica Kausen, which, in turn, is a quote from the film "Moulin Rouge".

I wanted to begin a journal of sorts to chronicle My experiences in Columbia University's Graduate Acting Class of 2014.  That's where "The Fourteen" comes from.  There are actually eighteen of us, but "The Fourteen" indicates the year as well as sounds ominous an a little sexy.  There's been a lot of stuff happening in the last four days, so for the sake of a brief first post, I'll... well... try to keep it brief.

Day One:  It was brilliant meeting everybody.  There are some amazingly brilliant, beautiful people that I'm going to be working with over the next three years.  I had a meeting with Arnold Aronson and... well, it was just great. Privacy.  But the entire staff and faculty have been so warm and welcoming that it-  it really just makes the entire energy of the place a place where you want to work and be.

Day Two:  Boring orientation day.  Let us never speak of this again.  :D

Day Three:  We continued work on collaboration week, and both of the groups that I was sorted into, just... again, have such amazing talent that it really blows my mind.  Celine Song wrote this amazing script, which is par for the course for her, but on top of that getting to know and hang out and work with Joan Wilks has been amazing.  This chick knows what's up about life.  I'm... kind of a fan of that.  And, working with Zarif and Greg has been just the best.  All of the dudes in my class are just choice.  Like, I want to go a little gay for them.  I mean just top-calibre.  I'm really excited to see what happens when classes really start.

*I should make a quick note that the ladies of the acting class are also quite amazing.  But seriously, the bro-love is THICK.  I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if it made people nauseous.

Day Four:  Continuing to work on everything.  We're also doing some extra little group project based around some abstract concepts.  I mean, I won't really explain it, but it's really just rad.  Sina, our directing cohort for the piece is just really creative and fun to work with.  And she's German.  Did I mention that we have people from all over the world happening here.  I could just listen to people talk all day long and be totally satisfied.  I would say the only bummer of the day was a convo with an upperclassman.  I don't know if she was trying to be funny or reassuring or whatever, but the general thesis was, "Look, don't worry about collaboration weekend, because you're not going to impress anybody."  I just thought to myself "What an asshole." and smiled and made a joke about how amazing I am... situation: DEFUSED!, but really, c'mon now, way to try to bring down the party.

So that's it for right now.  I wish I had started earlier so that I could have really made some detailed and poignant remarks about each day, but... I'm off to bed.

Stay tuned for more on this channel and keep an eye open for another blog coming up that'll tackle world politics, social issues and economics that I'll get an assist from by the brilliant Alex Gillette (Credits: Teacher; historian; sex-machine).