Under Studious Conditions

This week I expected to be writing about my experience participating in a (paying!) reading of a play adaptation by

Adrienne Thompson

of Aphra Behn's

The Widow Ranter

, but something came up that took precedence. Namely, a fellow actor whom I consider to be a friend got news of an illness in his family, and had to leave town unexpectedly. This shouldn't normally affect my life terribly directly; we're not close or constant friends. However, this same actor was appearing in a show in

this year's Fringe Festival

, a show based in commedia dell'arte traditions. So I was contacted to understudy the role. He left town last Friday, and the show,

La Vigilia

, opened yesterday.

I didn't go on. Actually, I should say I

haven't

gone on. My friend came back Sunday, and is going to be around for shows through Friday. Thereafter, it remains a question. He could be fine to perform in every showing throughout the Fringe's erratic scheduling, and I could get the call that I'm needed at any time between Friday and the 23rd. This is the first time I've ever understudied anything, and it's with very short notice. My only advantages have been my experience with commedia tropes, and having read the play about a year ago when the writer emailed it to me in the hopes of collaborating on it. I'm not complaining, mind: these are good advantages. Still and all, it is a new experience, and frankly pretty stressful -- like inviting an actor's nightmare upon myself. I ran through it once with the cast, without proper blocking notes, and that's about it for my practice. The rest is up to me. Perhaps it's needless to say that I'm attending every performance.

It's a unique experience in more ways than one. First there are the little ways. My (friend's) character sings a serenade betwixt acts two and three, which brings to the forefront with a slightly creepy synchronicity

my recent musings on my relationship to song

. There's also a strange spirit of reminiscence to all this for me, being that I'm unexpectedly reminded of

my experiences participating in the Fringe last year

, but in a much more detached way. Finally, on the side of smaller, there's a weird feeling of being someone the cast and crew need, but not someone they want. Not that they hold anything against me in any way! I represent the possibility of some unwelcome tidings, though, and on top of that I'm not allowed to help. I can, of course, jump in here and there to lend a hand, but there's some question as to how much I'm actually helping. Take for example the extremely quick set-up and tear-down that has to happen for the Fringe; it all has to happen in fifteen minutes to keep the space on schedule for the following shows. Therefore it would seem natural I should dig in and help, except that if I ever have to act in the show, that'll be one less hand

that

night and nobody wants to get used to the extra help leading up to that. So some bat me away when I lend a hand, and others wonder at why I'm just sitting there, and I can't blame either faction. It's confusing.

The larger ways in which it's unique have to do with approaching a familiar form with unfamiliar people and, well, approaches.

La Vigilia

is a very fine, neo-classical script, in my opinion. I like it a lot. Though clearly based in commedia dell'arte tropes, I don't perceive it to be traditional commedia dell'arte because, in my experience, the traditional sort is semi-improvised and contains rather baser character types. The characters in

La Vigilia

are nobler by far than the archetypes we know best from commedia dell'arte, but this serves the story well and I imagine helps to keep the sympathies of a contemporary American audience more immediate in the theatre (although the recent spate of

Apatow

comedies prove a lot of success with ignoble characters, at that). Perhaps because of this, the approach of the producing team seems to have been to put the emphasis on the language more than any broad physical characterization or lazzi. The zanni have their moments, of course, but even they are emblematic of this "departure." The male servant is pretty classically Arlecchino, but the zanna seems to be an interesting blend of Francescina and Colombina types, with just a dash of Isabella to smooth the flavor.

In that the script is never departed from, I find myself fascinated with the narrative complexities of the piece, though few outside of my own experience would likely describe the plot as especially complex. Had I directed the play, I would have approached it from a completely different angle, and I'm not convinced this would have been for the good of the final product. Still, I can't help but wonder how my production would have been different. Certainly it would have focused more on the physical images created, and broadened their scope. I think also I would have aimed for a certain Fellini "surreality," similar to what informed Zuppa del Giorno's first show,

Noble Aspirations

. (Incidentally, in my experience of Fellini and Italy thus far I find absolutely nothing surreal about what the man was portraying. That's just Italy.) This is part of why I believe it may be just as well that I didn't direct this piece. It's quite lyrical, and set in the 1950s -- though I would like to have seen those two things subjected to a bit more absurdity and raw appetite, they may be best left unmolested.

So this week has been largely spent reading (and rereading, and rereading, and rereading) the script and sitting in the audience as this cast tries to pull together the final elements of their production. I sit, in a strange state of anxious relaxation, wondering if I have anything to be worried about after all. Yesterday, the day the show premiered, I caught myself unwillingly entering a familiar state of mind and emotion. It was the same feeling I have all day before an opening that I am acting in, an unpredictable blend of trepidation and enthusiasm in which it is extremely difficult to stay focused on what's in front of me. Inside, I keep wandering toward the theatre, wondering if any time has passed since I last wondered if any time had passed.

Of course, now all I'm wondering is if I'll get off-book and, if I do, whether or not anyone will ever know it.

Follow Through

Yesterday (thanks to an informal assignment set by

Friend Nat

[you're my boy, Blue]) I completed the first draft of a short play, the first bit of fiction writing I have seen through to the state of having a distinct and spelled-out beginning, middle and end since . . . well, I can't recall. It

is

a first draft, and was largely worked through during lunch breaks and lulls at il day jobo, so it's not a magnificent accomplishment. Still and all, there was a very pleasant sense of synergy I experienced in the writing of it and, as you can see, the mere fact of finishing something has me feeling cuddly with myself. So it got me to thinking about the "Notions" series (& a

1

, & a

2

, & a

3

) of 'blog entries I shared with my tremendous, and tremendously grateful, reading populace all the way back in October/November of 2007. (Verily, Odin's Aviary has become an institution.) (Please refrain from unsavory "institution" insinuations. That's rude.) The idea behind those was to experiment with how the accountability that announcing creative intentions invites would affect their outcomes. Simply put, would sharing my ideas for projects sap my enthusiasm for them (as it seemed to when I was younger) or would it hold me to my ideas and keep them coming back to my priorities list? Let's take a look, shall we?

• Freaky Chicks & Aspirant. These are my two most interesting ideas (to me, at any rate) for comic-book adventures, the first being one I wrote a draft of way back 'round 2000, the second being one I had the idea for RIGHT BEFORE HEROES CAME OUT, I SWEAR TO GOD. Both toy with the notions (heh-heh) of superhero(TM)-like people cropping up in mundane settings, and rather unwilling partnerships. These ideas, I confess, I've done absolutely nothing with in the intervening months. Can I explain myself in this? Not really interested in doing that, I'm afraid. Also: No. I can't. I really like these ideas, still. I just haven't done the work necessary to resurrect them.

• The Project Project. This is a play I badly wanted to write when first I thought of it, and is most likely of all of my announced notions to go the way of the Dodo. Frankly, the title is the thing I dig the most about anything I've come up with for it. I started writing it, and got about five pages in before feeling like I had really gotten off on the wrong foot. I found the characters unsympathetic and the structure nonexistent -- two very bad things, made worse by the fact that I was in complete control of both of them. Clever titles are like booby-traps for frustrated writers, man. And this one's a bear trap, because I can't get over how great it could be, if only I could figure how to make it have a heart.

• Mimosa Pudica. A play I directed in college; the idea being that I mount a showcase production of it here with me directing. I haven't re-read the play, I haven't researched a thing along these lines, nor been mentally casting. I've barely thought about it. BUT. Over the past few months a burgeoning desire to direct has been building, and expressing itself through this here 'blog. I think the important thing about this particular notion was that it got me thinking that way with a fairly safe specificity, and now my thinking has expanded to more daring possibilities (such as directing my own Zuppa-style show) which, frankly, may be more apt. Mimosa Pudica may still get done though. It would probably be a good idea to have an intermediate step between my intention and my ambition.

• Building various stilt-related paraphernalia. Mmm, yeah. Well, this is a tough one when you don't have ready access to a workshop. Also tough when your stilts have been in storage for the past three months. And finally, Corporate Carnival queered me on stilts for a little bit. May be coming out of that soon; still would be lacking a power saw or titanium lathe. (Though I do have some nifty welding goggles.)

• Picking back up the trombone. Uh-huh. Next!

• Punch & Judy. Heather and I have made very little headway on this project; just a bit of research (including a wicked-rad find by Samantha Philips) and discussion. However, it definitely informed our creation of Love is Crazy, but Good for our performances in Italy in June, and the experience of working on that ended up being a crucial step toward things like learning how to work together without outside assistance and learning what works, what doesn't. It's difficult to develop something whilst in separate cities, and with so much other Zuppa-related work to do, but I'm confident Heather and I will get something of this up off the ground.

• Superhero(r) monodrama. I don't know how I feel about this notion, these days. The ubiquitous monodrama of the self-generating "creactor" is still something I'd like to have under my belt, but I feel more and more that I need collaborators to get my best work done. It's how I've worked all my life, really, and I'm not sure I'd even want to see a monodrama that had existed in solo for any significant stage of its development. Plus, when I had the idea, the Hollywood superhero(c) phenomenon hadn't quite hit the fever pitch it's at now. I would probably be working against a curve with that concept. Back to the notional drawing board, as far as I'm concerned.

• Using Friend Patrick's Sukeu mask in performance. See above? I don't know. In the spirit of Patrick himself, I'm loathe to apply the mask to something artificially. I want it to inform me of what it belongs with. This may entail getting in a room (with a mirror) with it and playing, without context. Which I should do anyway. It goes on the to-do list under "get new acting job." Patrick?

• My werewolf novel. You know, I increasingly feel that this story I've been writing and ruminating over has been co-opted by its own inciting notion. That is to say, maybe I don't want to write a story about werewolves (but literature needs another werewolf novel!) after all, and I shouldn't try so hard to make it be about that. What interested me and got me started on it was this different idea of what a werewolf might be. What has been most engaging about writing it (and I haven't done any writing on it in a long while) has been one of the non-central characters and writing about people who feel lost. So: Maybe I'm writing two different things without knowing it?

• The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet. It has a title! And a webpage! AND a 'blog! This is certainly the prospective project that has been most worked upon out of my lists, which is in keeping with my suggestion that I need collaborators to get anything done. In fact, the entire nature of the project is one of collaboration, being as it is a vehicle for collaborating with Italian artists, and I can hardly take credit for it as "my" notion anymore; if, in fact, I ever could. The very concept has leapt ahead, and in the best ways, in my opinion. I read my initial idea for the play and cringe a bit at the thought of working on something like that right now. Perhaps it's valuable, in the interests of getting projects accomplished, to think of them as inevitable, and also as something that will ultimately bear very little resemblance to the original notion.

• Red Signal. The clown, quasi-silent film screenplay. This, above all, is my most frustrating venture. Not because I haven't made progress on it; I have. That's the source of said frustration, because (much like a subway train faced with a...wait for it...) the writing hit a brick wall somewhere around March/April. There are a number of possible causes for this -- getting a new day job, busting my laptop, health concerns, getting on and into other projects -- but what it boils down to is that I feel rather out of ideas, and with three acts of a five-act outline all figured out (it's act the third that I have been stalled on; five's ready to roll). Three is certainly the magic number, and I'm confident that the cutting stage of this process will be immense, but I'm just not there yet. Something vital is missing. Apart from occasionally pondering (futility) the casting of the female role, I haven't returned to it in earnest since running out of track. Which. Is. Frustrating.

So all in all: I don't feel too bad about how I've done. I realize this list may read like it's largely a schedule of a lack of completion, but in writing it I've been reminded that every process is just that, and one can't rush it or skip steps. I could certainly have done better (especially when it comes to stilts, trombones and comicbooks) but I see in most of these notions a progression, at least in thinking. I'd like to be more productive ultimately, but that's why I checked in on these in the first place: to see how I can do that. In the spirit of this, this entry represents no great goal post, but another step in the process at large. So. Do I think sharing my ideas helped them move along?

Didn't hurt . . .

And the Award Goes To... (1)

Recently, I was honored to receive the coveted "Brilliante" 'blogger award from

Friend Patrick

. This is an award that functions rather like a chain letter or, perhaps I should say, it's rather an ever-expanding, world-wide web of love and appreciation. I was honored more by Patrick's comments about the Aviary than by the award itself, I must admit. It may be my recent grapples with a theatrical competition, or my reading about the founding of American business practices within the first three decades of the 20th century, or it may simply be my elementary-school self rearing his pudgy head, but I'm a bit turned off by the appearance of competition of late. (Not just the

practice

, but the

appearance

, mind. I hereby willfully acknowledge that such is silliness. Nevertheless.) So I wanted to move this honor of Patrick's forward, but eschew the conventions of the award itself. Plus, I kind of wanted it all to relate to this here 'blog's

mission statement

. So instead of listing here my choice of seven honorees, I'm going to do a few entries, now and then, in honor of fellow 'bloggers within my circle who help me with my struggle to live fully, freely and honestly. This being the first.

It's only proper to begin with Friend Patrick. His was one of the first 'blogs that I added to my little sidebar of links, and he's done a lot with

Loose Ends

. It's probably the strongest of his web presences in terms of representing him, as I'm not aware of any website he has set up. If you poke around a little, you may find

his Friendster:) page

, and various mentions of him as an actor or director in various biographies and reviews. You could be inclined to mistakenly take him for the un-photographed "Patrick Lacey" who appeared in

Babe

, but you'd be wrong. I think. At least, I hope Patrick would have told me already if he (in particular) appeared in a movie with talking animals.

I met Patrick doing one of my first New York City shows--

Significant Circus

--that self-same show that introduced me to the colorful world of circus-theatre. He was playing a dog. Brilliantly, I might add. Some time later, certain of the creative relationships formed during that show maintained, and he,

Kate Magram

,

Melissa Riker

and I formed our informal creative-artist support group, The Exploding Yurts. We would meet with semi-regularity, and mainly discuss whatever self-initiated projects we were working on or toward. We were mixed disciplines, and Patrick and I were the actors of the group, so there was an immediate affinity there. Patrick also creates beautiful masks, so I consider him to be a talented visual artist as well. I'm not sure what came first with Patrick, that feeling of comradeship or the feeling of loving friendship, but we gots both now, and that's the way I likes it. You know how you never have friends quite like you did when you were young? Well, I think the same can be said of the first real friends you make upon moving to a new place. Patrick is one of those.

So I'm a little biased. I admit it. And you are free to judge for yourself how brilliant Patrick is; after all, you can read all about his mental processes at

Loose Ends

. You can decide if I'm off my nut when I say he's one of the most sensitive and daring actors I've had the pleasure of working with, who uses his body in such imaginatively expressive ways that I'm often stunned. You just go ahead and tell me if I'm off when I say of Patrick that he commits more concentration and thought to all his work--acting, writing and other craft--than anyone else I know. And hey: If you think his 'blog doesn't evidence a passionately intelligent mind, one that takes nothing for granted, as well as a beautiful spirit, one that reaches always for truth and beauty, you go ahead and comment to that effect. Plus he's viciously funny. Or so I think. You're welcome to disagree.

You'd just be wrong. No crime in that.

But to bring things back around to self-aggrandizement for just a moment: I've learned a lot from Patrick. Our differences and similarities are very well-matched, if you ask me, and I regret not having made more opportunities to date to work with him as an actor. We've only done so twice, in fact. In the aforementioned show, and a one-act play in mask:

Icarus

.

Icarus

was itself a learning experience for me that could probably take up a whole entry, but one of the plain ol' techniques I learned from Patrick in that process was how to rev up an internal engine of sorts of performance energy, so there was a lot of drive there, but allow it to translate into simple, specific, one-at-time movements, so elemental to gestural work. There are myriad little technical things like that I've picked up from Mr. Lacey. Most significant to me, though, have been our shared moments of empathy and discussions about life as an artist. Not specifically as actors, mind you, but as artists. Patrick has an abiding and unashamed affection for the notion of our work being artful, and that as much as anything else has fueled me through some very tough times indeed. We both acknowledge all the difficulties of being an actor, living in New York, being young, growing older, trying to love more and hate less, etc., etc. And what we come up with is that someday, yes, we will have it all. And in the meantime, despite all its worries and tribulations (or perhaps [for me, at least] because of them) the struggle can be pretty great, too.

Now,

Loose Ends

is great for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it isn't the first thing you'll notice upon visiting, but Patrick is tied into an incredible network of 'bloggers. He gets anywhere from ten to 30 comments per entry, from folks of a similar mindset philosophically. Whereas

Odin's Aviary

tries and tries to stay within the borders of a kind of set of rules,

Loose Ends

weaves its way through every aspect of Patrick's life, rather like the trequetra that holds so much meaning for him. It's style is personable, and you never can be absolutely sure what you'll get. One day it will be a dialogue, the next a theory paper, the next a nature observation. The commonality is Patrick and all that goes with his personality, which is a lot. With other people, this kind of online journal might quickly be mired in ridiculous self-interest and immolating detail or preachy self-importance, but owing to Patricks's personal insight and outward-reaching philosophy you get quite a different experience. Identification and, occasionally, a much-needed pause to consider life outside of the rush of it all.

And so, this award goes to Patrick Lacey.

Jumping In

It's a wonderful feeling to be caught. Not in the red-handed manner, mind, but literally and physically caught -- as in, in interruption of your speedy progress toward something a bit on the hard side. Like the ground. It's also a great feeling to catch, especially if you're catching somebody who's in danger of said impact, but I covet a bit more the feeling of being caught, possibly just because it's a rarer experience for me. In teaching acrobalance to the youth of America, I'm more frequently the catcher. And, I admit, I have relished and relived some good catches I've made (one time I had to spin a falling girl around so that she, in effect, did a back flip before I set her on her feet . . . yeah, I revisit that, now and again . . .). But nothing quite beats the combined sense of vulnerability, gratitude and connectedness of having been caught. If you're open to the experience, that is.

I've been working on a short comedy for the past few weeks that performs as part of a one-act play

festival/competition

this weekend. It's called

Jump

(no; the other one) and it was penned by

Josh Sohn

, the gentleman I unexpectedly performed for in a

reading

back in the spring. It's an interesting situation, this production. As a part of a competitive series that contains 37 plays -- some of them longer than others -- we only perform twice if we fail to advance, three-to-four times if we go farther. So the whole thing has a curious similarity to a high school production experience, wherein you work for a rather long time, perform one weekend and that's it. Fortunately, it being a short play (under 20 minutes, I believe), the ratio of rehearsal-to-performance doesn't feel totally absurd. It is also strange to work on a pretty straight-forward, narrative comedy with strangers again.

I've gotten very comfortable with performing with my

Zuppa del Giorno

cohorts, and when we plunged in to

Jump

, I had a period of adjustment to contend with. We did not speak the same comic language right away. It was not collaborative in the same way as I have grown accustomed to with Zuppa, which not only made me reticent to put my ideas out there in rehearsal, but more than a little affronted when I received suggestions from fellow actors. (That's messed up; I'm still working out why I felt that defensive, initially.) And finally, and I believe for the first time, I'm the oldest person in the room. Everyone else in this show is early-to-mid-twenties. Which, well, is something I'd do best to grow accustomed to.

It's funny about comedy (ha ha): It requires a lot of trust. Stage comedy is like the do-or-die theatre -- there's little room for interpretation of audience response. Oh, we try to justify our experiences. "They were a quiet, attentive audience." "I saw everyone smiling, though." "It's this house; it's too hot/cold/separated/claustrophobic/post-modern..." When it comes right on down to it, though, live comedy is like a deathsport in which there's no overtime, and no one's allowed to a tie game. The only people who have it rougher than a stage actor in this regard (and I believe

Friend Adam

will back me up on this) are stand-up comedians. They practically stand up there and say, "Okay, world. Here's your chance to crucify me. No one else to blame but myself." Then again, too,

good

actors have to take a similar stance; even if they have a supporting cast of a dozen or more.

I've written here before about my rules of acrobalance, and how widely applicable I find them to be. Perhaps the most applicable is the idea of shared responsibility, summed up by the dictate, "Always be spotting." I wasn't familiar with the term "spotting" prior to learning circus skills, except as a part of a verbal sequence I was taught in my very first summer job, with

Beltway Movers

. (When lifting something heavy with someone else, you were told to say, "spot," meaning "brace yourself," then, "pick," meaning "we're lifting now." When lifting things such as pianos and trundle beds, I often added my own, more-flowery, four-letter words to this sequence.) Spotting, in a circus context, is to be ready to catch your fellow daredevil. When I teach, I teach everyone to always be ready to catch everyone else. It keeps people alert to think this way, which is generally helpful. It also reinforces that idea that all responsibility is shared. In this context, when something goes wrong or disappoints, no one is at liberty to blame anyone else, because each individual must always consider what he or she could have done to make it safer, better, or both.

As it is with acrobalance, so let it be with comedy. (And all other things.) Over the few weeks of rehearsal, I and my new friends have found a great deal more trust. I trust them to catch me if I fall and, more importantly, I've found the trust to forget myself enough to be ready to catch them at any moment. We'll have a very short time of fulfillment for our work to date, and it's entirely possible that we'll never see one another again thereafter. And, come to think of it, it's pretty amazing how we actors have to cultivate this sense of trust over and over again. Not just because it's a great thing in itself, but also because actors are continually being used. We will work for little-to-no pay, we accept a million tiny violations of our rights that others are alarmingly ignorant of, and frankly, get viewed as objects or sources of pleasure as often as we are as people. Put all that together, and it's pretty amazing that actors find any trust at all amongst themselves, much less intimately and repeatedly.

There's a popular axiom amongst circus performers: Leap and the net will catch you. I think perhaps for actors it should be, "Just jump. I'm sure it'll at least be interesting."

The Continuing Story of Circus-Kid Kate

Some time ago, rather in response to a 'blog entry Leah Hager Cohen did about her, I devoted an entry (see 3/14/08) to Friend Kate Magram in tribute to the amazing things she's taught me. That, I had hoped, would spawn a tremendous groundswell of Kate-imonials, because she's really touched a number of people in her time as an active circus enthusiast. (And most of those touches weren't even inappropriate!) Well, my readership is too small, it seems, to inspire such swelling. I remain confident that it's not size that matters in this matter (of swelling, ground or otherwise), but I do wish I could have brought people's awareness of Kate a little more to the forefront of the national consciousness.

Fortunately, Mizz L.H.C. is a little more influential:

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/names/bloggers/balancing-acts-blog

Sure. It's Good Housekeeping. But I still think it's hella cool. In the accompanying interview with Mz. Cohen they ask her if she's done any "acro-balance" moves lately, and she replies that she hasn't, but likely will the next time Kate comes around. That doesn't surprise me, because it only takes one acro session with Kate to appreciate that she's eager to do that work any time, any place, compensating for any injuries or social mores that may stand in her way.

Recently, I ran across a photo on a friend of a friend's Facebook(TM) page. (No, I'm not linking to Facebook; because it's ruined my life.) It was of my friend and his friend doing a thigh-stand in some public space, and looking pleased as punch about it at that. My friend is Kasidy Benjamin. (Okay, see? That's how Facebook's ruined me.) He found me in Legal Snarls, Zuppa del Giorno's second production, way back in 2004. Kasidy came with us to Italy for In Bocca al Lupo the first time we all went, and performed semi-improvised comemdia dell'arte in Italian for an Italian audience. He graduated high school last semester, and in the fall he's off to Dell'Arte International. And somewhere in all that, either I or Friend Heather (and I taught Heather) taught him thigh-stand.

Kate has a thing about the lineage of knowledge, particularly as it applies to the passing-down of skills. In her perfect world, everyone would know the family tree of everything he or she has learned. "I learned it from this person, who studied with this person, who was a disciple of..." Etc. I admit, it sounds very nice. Even noble. I also think we're a bit too far gone to get it done these days. I could certainly start now, though, and in the world of acrobalance my beginning begins with Kate. From Kate came all these good things. I owe Kate huge karmic residuals (which she would almost certainly rebuff for being inherently un-karmic [unless they manifested as money or free time, perhaps]).

Here's the thing I'm having trouble with: For various perfectly rational reasons, a few years back Kate drastically reduced her involvement in creating circus work and new circus performers. She is now hip-deep (occasionally eye-ball-deep) in the work entailed in becoming a physical therapist, and she'll be a good one. Her secondary passion to acrobalance when we worked together was making sure EVERYONE DOES THINGS SAFELY. Some of this, admittedly, may have had to do with liability issues, but I choose to believe the core of Kate's personality lies in a primal need to protect people; occasionally from themselves. That instinct, combined with her love of all things physical, makes her a prima candidate for becoming an involved and informed physical therapist. Can not complain about them apples. What I can moan about is Kate's self-removal, albeit necessary, from the regular teaching and choreographing of acrobalance. I don;t think this will come as any particular surprise to Kate. Unless she misinterprets my feelings as a criticism of her choices. Which they are not. Kate.

It's just that, dang it, she's good. Maybe she's not the greatest acrobat in the world, or even the most gifted teacher; she'd be the first to confess various stories of having missed this or that, wishing she could go back and do something different. But I think we all feel that way about our work to some extent, and the people who really fail in any meaningful sense do so because they fail to perceive their own mistakes. What Kate has that's so damn valuable is an effortless love for the work, and for the people who are willing to try to come to it with open hearts and minds. That love fills the room -- and sometimes, a good portion of Sheep Meadow -- when Kate teaches. I've tried to carry that on, that ethos, and I think I've done a pretty fair job. I enjoy teaching or skill-swapping in this vein for the moment it creates amongst all involved, and it seems that those moments can indeed carry out into the world and the future with the right people involved, like Kasidy. So it's good work. Time well spent.

Thanks again, Kate.