Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap . . .

Hello loyal (3-4) readers. I'm sad to report that I have had a tragedy in my life. It seems the pressures and tribulations of working for my boss have forced her full-time assistant (not me--I'm a "paralegal") into the hospital. Yes. I'm being literal. More significantly (to me, anyway), said assistant also quit on Friday.

For those of you in the know, the rest of this entry may be unnecessary, but I cling to the hope that there are people out there who are A) not fully acquainted with the details of my life; and B) reading this 'blog. I cling and I cling, and Rose tells me, "Don't let go, Jack! Never let go!", and I reply "My name's not Jack," as my icy grip perilously weakens moment by moment.

Anyway. My heart

will

go on. Just ignore it.

Outside "the know"? Then know this: No new 'blog entries for a while, probably. I will be pulling double duty (which, for Mona, pretty much means quadruple duty) until we can find and train a new assistant for her. This, added to the rapidly accelerating rehearsal process for

A Lie of the Mind

, equals no time for extra craft work.

I can only hope that Literature can withstand my absence for however long it takes to find a new sucker, er . . . SKILLED OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR.

I am Surrounded by Babies

And they are adorable. Though they do, at present, remind me of a

Dane Cook routine

regarding unpleasant sounds and child abuse. So hopefully nobody will squeak a marker against the paper or rub two pieces of packing styrofoam together in my proximity any time soon, because the likelihood of my being around or about a baby is

high

. In fact, when visiting with the Younces (see

3/11/07a

) I was offered the newborn to hold, and I replied nay. Twice. Was it because I feared harming the baby? Perhaps, but I also feel there was a part of me saying in response to such an offer: No thank you; I'd rather not sample exactly what I'm missing just now.

Fatherhood, I expect, is one of those things that one can--at best--imagine they're ready for. And such dreamers are invariably wrong on some level. So, in essence, it's a leap-and-the-net-will-be-there sort of endeavor. I'm accustomed to that manner of feat, and in concept it holds less fear for me than it once did. No man ever feels ready to be a father, yet we do it anyway. The miraculous thing to me about becoming a parent is the choice. There aren't too many significant things we can do in this life that we have so much choice about. Career success, as with many other forms of success, depends on degrees of fortune that are impossible to calculate. Love happens

to

you, if the mystics are to be believed, and usually when we change someone else's life in any way it's an accident. And yes, a couple can decide to have a family and fail for one reason or another, and children can be accidentally gestated . . . but that

choice

. . . that readiness--performed in whatever degree of ignorance it may--is miraculous.

I finally came to feel I was making some interesting, valuable choices in rehearsal for

A Lie of the Mind

last night. Naturally, these came faster and better when I felt I could let go of the need to make

really effective choices

. So there you are. Nevertheless, I don't feel it was solely my overall relaxation in the role that allowed the progression. In my opinion, it had just as much to do with the development of the group vibe between

Daryl

,

Todd

and

I

(I was only there for my first three scenes), and the deepened understanding about the family relationship between Jake and Frankie; and, indeed, family relationships in general.

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

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

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

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

Blessings

On my way home from rehearsal Friday night, I was stopped at the corner of 48th and 6th (in Manhattan) by two tall gentlemen (All right: tall to

me

. You bastards.) who asked me a question. I could not hear these men, as I was listening to one of my transcendentally brilliant mixes through my

Sony MDR-J10 earbuds

, so I removed said earbuds from my ears, only to discover that I still could not understand these men. They had fairly heavy French dialects, and were asking me something about channel four. "You mean NBC?" I innocently asked, pointing to the glowing studio sign down the block. (In my hometown, NBC broadcasts on channel four.) Non, Non. The bar: Channel 4. Sorry fellas. No notion.

They moved on, and as I reinserted my Sony MDR-J10 earbuds I wondered what kind of bar they were headed for. Would I be allowed in, if I tailed them? Sadly, I was distracted by the common flaw of my Sony MDR-J10 earbuds. If you yank them too hard, invariably one will get a wire loose and only send you smatterings of aural delight, which is not delightful. The opposite, in fact. Cursing my good-natured ribaldry with the French, I switched to Dane Cook (spoken word, IOW) for the long ride home.

Frankie, my character in this incarnation of

A Lie of the Mind

, is a tricky guy to play. The only background you're given on him is his relationships with his siblings and mother, and a brief reference to his having won a baseball scholarship in his youth. Oh, and he was played by

Aidan Quinn

on Broadway. (Who ranks amongst my list of least favorite actors, though

Benny & Joon

is an undeniable classic. You bastards.) He has nothing--as far as I have discovered within a week of rehearsal--of his own to fight for in the play, apart from his survival after receiving a gunshot wound. Most of his time is spent trying to help his brother out. Tricky tricky tricky. This morning, getting ready to leave for our first full stumble-through, I was busying my mind with questions about this problem. Questions like, "Why are you such a foil, Frankie?" and "Who made you such a tool, Frankie?"

Then we had our stumble-through, and stumble we did, with great conviction. My favorite moment was when one actress expressed frustration with not having learned a note about remaining positive about everything that happened on stage, and another replied, "Yeah Cindy, I mean, you

have

been working on it for a whole eight days now." (I refuse to indicate "irony" with an emoticon in this space.) I relished the run-through, dreading it as I had been, because something about its continuity allowed me to cease freaking out about how incapable of the work I felt and thereby

actually listen

. Imagine my profound sense of revelation upon actually hearing my scene partners. Ah, victory. Or, at least, a step beyond.

After rehearsal I called

Friend Younce

, who was in town with family for yet another niece's blessing. I had forgotten that this was the prophesied weekend of said visit. Fortunately (and, might I add, miraculously), I had nothing else doing tonight. Unfortunately, the crew was assembled IN

BAY RIDGE

. For those of you less familiar with the boroughs of my nuevo Zion, Bay Ridge is to Manhattan as Richmond is to DC . . . at least by

subway

. It is not so far from my home in Brooklyn, however. If the Younce clan had been gathered in the Bronx or Queens, yours truly wouldn't have had the evening he eventually did.

After near-on two hours of travel, I was amongst them. Friend Dave, his wife Michelle, their children Hildegard and Enoch, his sister Carrie and her husband Ed and their children Hazel and . . . uh . . . Ginger? No. Dang it. I'll get it later. Also Dave and Carrie's parents, whom I hadn't seen in years. It was great, albeit rather different from my usual hang time with Dave, which is usually more reminiscent of our olden days of comicbooks and discussions of girls and mythology. I love the Younces. They remind me of how sane, yet individualistic family members can be. And Dave is one of those friends of olde that I just fall back in with. So it was unconventional and welcoming.

There was pizza, and playing kids' games, and a movie (

Stranger than Fiction

, which I had already seen and--not joking here--I believe would have made a better book) and some of the olde discussion.

When I stepped out to head home on the R train, it was raining but warm. It was midnight, but really 1:00 AM, given the imminent spring in time. That amazing smell of newly wet asphalt was rising all around. It was uplifting; one of those moments that makes one wake up a bit, just enough to remember to recognize and appreciate the world around him. After a few moments of enjoying the sound of the rain on the street and the stone's-throw East River, I happily inserted my new

Sony MDR-J20 earbuds

into my ears for the not-so-long journey home.

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

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

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

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

And relatively speaking (or writing), as long as your hope-o-meter (or fiction-o-gramme, for you

Europeans

) is in fairly regular interaction with the outside world, you get helpful feedback. Helpful in the sense of:

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

Not so much, when it comes to one's internal imagination system.

Hope

has a much more enhanced ability--nigh mutagenic, one might say--to polymorph into utter falsity. Anyone read the report of

Gingrich

confessing his extramarital affair, which occurred during Lewinskygate? Holla back, Newt! Holla back. Did he perceive the moral loophole afforded him by his religious views, or was it a subconscious struggle? We may never know. What we do know is that not one of us is without self-deception on some level, so we may not throw the first stone. Even if he did totally project his own self-hatred on someone with more responsibility. Even if it turned him into the same kind of liar he railed against in those halcyon days. And even if I do say, "Jehovah."

Don't worry guys: I'm only bringing this up because of the title of the

play I'm working on now

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

Batman

. Yep. Uh-

huh

. . .

"Oops."

It's funny. Chris Kipiniak's Spider-Man debut? It's funny. I can't tell if it's funnier because I know Chris, and can hear his voice in it, but that only matters to those of you who don't know him, so I don't really care. Does this dissuade you from picking up a copy? Oh shoot. My blatant nepotistic promotion has backfired. Well, suppose I told you there was an interesting error in the publishing of this comicbook? It may never come to anything that would make the book valuable, I suppose. Unless Chris' career takes off, that is.

In the final moments of the final confrontation between Spidey and the Circus of Death, embedded in one of the funniest captioned frames ("Meanwhile, up above.... Remember? The guy on the trapeze?") are two frames in which the dialogue and the character's expressions are switched. When the evil acrobat's face is contorted with concentration, he says, "Oops." When it's pale with fear, he says, "Almost...got..."

Last night I had another rehearsal of

A Lie of the Mind

, still reeling a bit from head cold and the necessary medication. It was a mess for me. I would shift between congested retardation and loopy impulse-control difficulties. It got to be very frustrating to me, trying to push past this wall of mucus to make good work. Every choice I made rang false to me, range falser and flat, and I could never be sure if it was because I was making such poor choices, or if I just couldn't feel the right reverberations.

Working out of order as we are, to accommodate everyone's schedules, one of the last scenes of the evening we worked on was the first in which my character, Frankie, is introduced to the family of his sister-in-law. In said scene, he's just been shot through the thigh, and he has very little dialogue to express a variety of things: pain, anger, shock, fear, confusion. More difficult still, his intention in the scene is bizarrely structured. It's rather achieved within the first moments he arrives in the room, and thereafter he merely fights for his own freedom . . . poorly. It was going to be tricky, and I knew it. The only thing an actor can do, past any preparation, in this circumstance is to jump in. I did.

And started making mistakes left and right.

Which worked great. It turns out, having a head cold is pretty excellent base material for emulating the symptoms of shock, which is rather the key to the strangeness of the scene. The character is slipping out of reality, but fighting it all along, struggling against himself to achieve what he's already achieved. He's getting no feedback, or at least none that he can understand and interpret.

It's tricky for me to embrace ignorance, or to relish "not knowing." It was one of the biggest lessons I came away from Italy with last June. And yes, it's one of those lessons I keep learning over, and over, and over again. I'll probably never get it naturally. So for those of you who know me: be patient. Someday I'll be able to admit just how little I know. Think of how much I'll be able to learn then.