Valence Times Stay

A year ago today I was

writing about snow

. This year, we had our snow about twenty-four hours ago, and it was real purty, and it is real gone, now. Now it's just wicked cold, and bright. Valentine's Day isn't typically a holiday that brings a lot of clarity with it, either meteorologically speaking or emotionally, but today it seems to have done just that on at least one count.

Many of my friends are reaching out to wish each other a happy one, and I extend the same greeting. I still don't dig this holiday in any way. To put a finer point on it: It blows. Lotsa money. Lotsa energy. Lotsa people singled out (literally and figuratively) for misery by it. So, as with every other year on this day, I encourage you, gentle reader, to consider the value of platonic love today. My hat's off to all my friends in a sweeping bow of gratitude. If they made candy hearts with platonic aphorisms on them, mine would read:

In all this world, the most buoying thing, the greatest force, the excellent material of my skein of days is your presence in my life, which allows me the opportunity to occasionally offer you a fraction of the joy your existence brings to me, my friend.

My candy heart is big with love for you all.

Three's Company

This entry is not about the formative experience that watching the above-mentioned situation comedy was for me. Nor is it about using proper punctuation in titling. It is, however, about company. Or rather, companies. Or rather, theatre companies. And threes are just funny, as any self-respecting reader of this 'blog by now knows.

I have been a part of several start-up theatre companies at this point, and I have been in-on-the-ground-floor-ish of several original shows, the which is a bit like being a part of the beginning of a repertory company (just one that is guaranteed to disband at some point [probably a month or so from the first rehearsal]). I'm sure there are many who have been a part of more over the course of a decade, but I've had my share. A brief history:

1. Just after junior high (which is 7-8 grade in NoVa), my drama teacher at Lake Braddock started his own summer theatre camp, producing children's plays he had written, which were mostly adapted fairy tales or adaptations of existing plays. I attended two summers, the first two, and looking back I'd say it was safe to suggest that he had very little idea where to begin. He just began, and it was begun. As far as I know, that "company" disbanded when he switched to teaching high-school theatre at a different school.
2. In high school, every show was like a company beginning and ending, in the compressed nature of intense teenage experiences. The one we really felt we owned, however, was our competitive improvisation troupe. That one ended, for me, in graduation, but as far as I know continues on through the years at good ol' James W. Robinson.
3. In college I fell in with a group which eventually came to be called Lacquespace (sp?) Enesmble, or Theatre, or Productions, or something like that. It was essentially formed from the frustrations of a writer who wasn't getting what she wanted from the curriculum and actors who were tired of not get cast, either for grade restrictions or simply because they went unnoticed. The group put on several well-meaning, hard-working productions. I acted in the first and wrote something for another. At a class meeting (read: me: geek: I was '99 theatre class president), I suggested that we needed to get involved to keep Lack-space alive after we garduated, and the woman who got it started misinterpretted it as an attempt to wrest control from her. Still, I believe it continued beyond our departure. When I graduated, a younger woman was at the helm, steering it toward geurilla theatre.
4. It took me a while to get settled, upon graduating college and moving to New York, and for some time there was no possibility of knowing enough people to strike up an organization. Then, about a year into my residence, the seeds of two such start-ups were planted. From the group that produced a show entitled Significant Circus would eventually come the circus-theatre troupe Kirkos, and from my work with David Zarko on a farce entitled Der Talisman I would come to be included in the formation of Zuppa del Giorno, the contemporary commedia dell'arte troupe. Kirkos enjoyed a few years of productivity, but now exists more as a talent-funneling organization than anything else. Zuppa del Giorno, of course, is still going strong in Scranton--as well as annually in Orvieto--and for that I am grateful.
5. UnCommon Cause (formerly known as Joint Stock Theatre Alliance) began the process that would eventually become As Far As We Know almost four years ago, and nearly three years ago I was invited to join it. This does not a company make, but after two-odd years of working with a group on a single project, one does develop a certain sense of family.

Recently I got an email from Friend Nat, one he had sent to about a dozen theatre folk he is familiar with, testing the waters for the enthusiasm people would have for starting a theatre company. Shortly thereafter, Friend Avi contacted me about the possibility of collaborating together (in spite of his current busy-ness with grad school) on a script or show. Avi and I have already met and agreed to do mutual research. Getting together with Nat (Hi, Nat!) is like trying to barter for clothing in a refugee camp (totally a mutual difficulty [Hi Nat!]). Finally, prior to both offers, I was contacted by David at The Northest Theatre about the possibility of joining in an effort to set up a resident theatre company there starting next season.

For most actors like me--that is, who dig "straight" theatre productions and are of not-too-great fiscal ambition--the idea of becoming a part of something like a permanent company is awfully tempting. "Repertory" theatres, as they are often called, are scarce in America these days, at least in comparison to how many there used to be. Now, every actor is a sort of "free agent," every theatre an economic liability that relies on celebrity draw and its elder community for staying afloat. (You notice I'm not backing this up with anything--this ain't wikipedia--and you are free to disagree.) A company, or even a single venture, with any staying power (and staying-with-me power) is very appealing to me. This is part of why "university theatre," or the track of going back to school, teaching and eventually getting tenure, is so sought after. It occupies more and more of my thoughts these days.

However, I am also a little gun-shy about starting something new, about doing it all over. That's understandable, I think, given one perspective on the past twenty years o' life. In some senses, how far have I gotten? Where am I now? Many people--myself occasionally included--look at my life and wonder at why I should be in such an insecure, unestablished place at my age. It's not uncommon for me to be written off in a lot of people's opinions as anything from undisciplined to inconsequential. Ah: But. In the past twenty of my years--and especially in the past ten--as an actor and creative collaborator, I have had experiences I wouldn't trade for a 41" flatscreen TV. Through all the beginnings and endings, misunderstandings and perfect chemistry, I've created my own work in little communities of people who care, and it has made me a better person. I have no doubt. Whatever is the next, best choice for me and my life, it will be a choice that leads me to as much of this sort of experience as I can handle.

Take a step that is new, y'all. Take a step, that is new . . .

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

sub

titled

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.

Happy Anniversary

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

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

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

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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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.