No, I'm here. I am. I'm just . . .

So, this week is nutso in the extreme for yours truly. I just wanted to say that I have lots o' lots to write about, and little time (and virtually none in front of a computer) in which to post it. So be patient, Gentle Reader. All in good time.

In other news, did anyone else ever notice how similar Robert Downey Jr. and I are in body type? You know -- if I had five hours with a personal trainer each day. Uncanny

Iron Man.

Update!

Just in case you can't get Dave's link in the "Reactions" section to work :

The Perfect Notebook

It is one of those personal, secret blessings of my work as an actor/"creactor" that the work necessitates the use of notebooks. By secret blessing, I mean a requirement that makes me very happy for somewhat irrelevant reasons. I love notebooks. Something about their organization, informality, yet relative physical permanence satisfies me in a very personal way. (See the manila-folder sequence in

Stranger than Fiction

for a nice illustration of a secret blessing of one's work.) I find this a bit odd, this affection for notebooks, since I generally detest hand-writing when I could be typing. It is, however, undeniable.

I would like to design my own notebook. Not just design it, mind you, but get it made, so I can use it. Maybe I could turn this into a profitable enterprise (imagine funding my acting career with notebooks--I'm giddy at the thought) but primarily I'm simply interested in making something that helps me work. I have favorite notebooks as it is, mind you.

Moleskine(R)

is and always will be a classic, and they produce an impressive variety of sizes and custom uses. I also use the "

Katebook

" quite a lot for shows. They come in a variety of sizes as well, and are easy to paste script pages into; their best feature by far, though, is the colored page edges that neatly pre-divide them into 3 or 5 sections.

Neither of these brands satisfy completely, however. There are very particular aspects to working on the kinds of shows that I do, which require special considerations. It is a simple matter to answer these demands -- it's just that no one's done it yet, as far as I know. Someone, please, let me know if my answer is out there somewhere. In the meantime, what follows is a kind of verbal illustration of my dream-notebook.

• Size. A critical aspect. THE critical aspect, in many ways. I at once need something that fits easily into all of the bags I practically live in, and with the capacity to hold a lot of information in an organized fashion, and something that can be comfortably held in one hand. Because I'm often acting with it, see, and taking notes. A good size for me has been the 6"x8" Katebook; it's perfect for pasting standard script pages in, and not too cumbersome to hold (though a little thick/heavy when approaching the end of a rehearsal period). I might go with something more 7"x8", however, for various reasons to be further explained. And a little thinner; say, 1/2" to 3/4"?

• Durability. It must withstand the worst atrocities you may imagine, for not only will it be dropped, it will be thrown. And it will get wet. It may even be exposed to a Meisner exercise gone wrong.

• Binding. A tricksy question, my precious. I dig the hardcore durability of the Moleskine(R), but the notebook must be able to be folded in half, for hand-holding. Plus, with items added to it, it need to be able to expand a bit without turning into an effective doorstop. Which leads me to believe good ol' spiral binding is still the way to go. However, it should be with a thick strand that's very resistant to flattening or uncoiling, and that spiral needs to have a covering. Fabric, maybe. Something that saves it from the various abuses that taking a notebook in and out of containers invariably inflicts upon ye olde spiral binding.

• Cover. One of the best things about a Moleskine(R) is one of its most subtle features -- the cover. It's lightweight and pliable, yet coated with a material (formerly leather, not sure what now) that makes it extremely durable. The only fault I find with it is the color. It makes the outside fairly useless for titling or what-you-will. So in my world, the cover is the same stuff, only a lighter color. Not white, but perhaps a nice tan or beige. Rounded corners.

• Paper. Durable, yet fairly thin. Not so much so that ink bleeds through, but often the extra weight of a notebook has to do with using a kissing cousin of cardstock for the paper. The paper needs to have those color gradations on the edges that the Katebook has. And most importantly, it should be graph paper. GRAPH. PAPER. Why? It's the best. You can write neatly portrait or landscape, make neat columns and such, and drawings look fancy-fied by it. Rounded corners.

• Features. The elastic strap on Moleskine(R)s (it closes the book by wrapping around the right lateral edge) is perfect as container and place-holder. Most of these also have some sort of expanding wallet attached to the inner back cover for scraps of paper. In my notebook, there will be one such on the front cover, just big enough for one or two sheets (contact sheet, schedule) and a larger, compartmentalized one on the back. Both will fit an 8 1/2 x 11 sized paper, folded in half along the horizontal. Finally, within the spiral binding, there will be a place to hold a pencil. This will be a special design, as it will need to be suspended in such a way that it doesn't interfere overmuch with the opening and closing of the notebook.

• What it won't have. A spring clip -- too cumbersome, and ultimately non-useful. Other pockets -- huge increase on bulk. Removable paper -- unavoidably comes loose (this is a problem with the Katebook) and it's spiral anyway; torn edges be damned. Zipper closure -- notebooks were intended to be opened faster than that, douche. Pre-printed pages -- if I want a calendar or metric-conversion table in there, I'll use paste. Anything that juts -- why would you do that to us? It's like some kind of sick, Nazi, social experiment, watching people fumble getting things in and out of pockets and bags.

The only thing left is what to call it. And, you know, actually diagramming it, producing and distributing it. Marketing it. Legal action when I get sued by both Moleskine(R) and Kate's Paperie. Aw, forget it! Who needs the aggravation?

Anything is worth the realization of the perfect notebook...

Update 3 June 2008: Ask, and the good people at MAKE shall provide!

Incorporation

Next week I'll be performing a show twice daily down at the World Financial Center, under the auspices of

The Women's Project

. The show is called

Corporate Carnival

, and is much as it sounds -- a sort of carnival (though more circus) celebration (though more satire) of corporate America (though more capitalist America at large). It will be performing in the

"Winter Garden" section

, May 14 - 16, showtimes at 1:00 and 7:00, and the 15th thrice, the previous times plus a 4:00. We earn our money over there at The Women's Project, fo' sho'.

The show itself is interesting to me for a return to collaborative creation and my status within it. I'm one of a sort of inconsequential chorus called "The Temps." We burst through between main acts with commercial-like interruptions, and supplement the other actors' "scenes." We're also on stage even when we're "backstage," owing to the nature of our staging the show in an open area, and we're all responsible for developing a "greenshow" act. Greenshow acts are sort of a roving warm-up before the main stage begins, especially useful in this format because they get people's attention by adhering to a busking style. So we're doing all that (see above "fo' sho'"), but our additions to the show itself are not necessarily especially skilled. I'm stilting for one commercial, but for the most part the Temps' contributions aren't particularly physically demanding. In spite of the many circumstantial similarities between this project and the work of

Cirque Boom

and

Kirkos

(particularly Cirque Boom's

Circus of Vices and Virtues

, in which I played a stilt-walking businessman), they're very different in that regard.

I've had to create a lot of self-generated output recently. So much, in fact, that today I began to worry for the first time if I wasn't just recycling and regurgitating. This is due in part to hammering out an outline for a potential performance piece (pah pah pah) for Italy, under the auspices of

Zuppa del Giorno

. I took the three archetypal clowns we portrayed in

Silent Lives

, and bits and sequences from all our shows (Zuppa-related or no), added a dash of some of my favorite stage conventions and voilà! A . . . show! Of sorts! I kind of hate it! But the idea is that we'll all get into a room together soon (somehow) and develop it, or something that doesn't resemble it in the slightest. Not sure which one I'm hoping for at this point.

Sludging through this effort reminded me of working on my clown film (see

3/27/08

), in that I was writing out actions more than words, trying to tell a story through humorous, true deeds and bits. It was also reminiscent of the film in that I was frequently stuck, trying to figure out how to go on from a given point, and I've been feeling pretty stuck on the film script as well. It seems that once Our Hero (this is what I've been calling the clown character in the script) gets out of Central Park, I have very little direction for him. And now, after a couple of weeks of contributing to generate original scenes for

Corporate Carnival

, I have to develop a greenshow act for it, and I'm drawing blank. It's a little like I've run out of gas. Cough! Cough! Sputtterrrrr . . .

Yet on Sunday (see

5/5/08

), with eager and communicative collaborators, the ideas were flowing like gasoline in the 1990s. Perhaps what I need to do is engage in dialogue with someone who is inclined to be energetic about this kind of thing. Perhaps, too, I need to just get out of my mind and into my body. That was definitely a key element in Sunday's successful creation. This block may be entirely symptomatic, in fact, of a period of relative creative isolation of late. I started writing the clown film when I was between day jobs, and there were no theatre commitments, and very little energy on my part going into find them. At the time I viewed my individual effort as reclaiming a little of my work for myself (as part of my process of dealing with letting go of

As Far As We Know

[see

1/15/08

]), and so it was. Yet it was also a retreat.

That's the nice thing about work. As long as you're doing it, you're working.

Such Great Heights

Yesterday was a Sunday, and I've relished those Sundays in the past few years that allowed me to sleep in, do a crossword and generally rock the low-key rockin'. I generally hate to rehearse on a Sunday night. Someone always wants you to. It's driven by desperation, largely. The scale of production I generally work on in the city doesn't pay one enough to quit his or her day job, so the folks managing schedules are confronted with a barrage of money-making conflicts. No one wants to rehearse early on Sunday, because of God. Also, because it follows too close on the heels of festive Saturday night. So someone invariably suggests Sunday night for rehearsals, and I invariably have to say, "Oh yeah, no, that's my knitting-circle night," or some such. Yesterday I had a rehearsal at mid-day, which was okay. If the trains hadn't been wearing their special helmets, I might have even made it on time.

Cirque Boom

has been requested to perform at a

benefit

for

NYFA

, and I and three other performers were requested by Ruth Juliet Wikler-Luker to participate. One

Ms. Cody Schreger

is joining me for acrobatic duets, largely of the standing variety, owing to the constraints of the space. True to Cirque Boom form, we're playing energetically eccentric characters. I'm playing a tormented, mute poet, immigrated to America some years ago in a quest for a new love; Cody his first lover from "The Olde Country," venturing to America for the first time in the hopes of bringing him safely back into her embrace. This is all an elaborate excuse for flamboyant gesture and expressive acrobalance. We met yesterday in an apartment/studio in Brooklyn to refresh our (read: my) memories and choreograph.

I

hurt

today. And it is a

good pain

.

Approximately three years ago,

Kirkos

, a circus-theatre-et-al. troupe I was a founding member of, effectively folded. A little while later, Ruth of Cirque-Boom fame left the country for a year. These were my two core sources not only for "acro" exposure and practice, but for my expressive physical activity in general. In the intervening years between then and now, I've kept busy and tried to apply all I learned between 2002 and 2005 to other shows I've worked on and in workshops I taught. I worked so hard at that, in fact, that I had come to believe that I was maintaining my practice sufficiently, if not with as great rigor or regularity. It's amazing how complacent a person can become if he or she only wills it to be so.

I've written here before about the good ol' days of my acro career, when I was young(er) and doing handstands in the corridors of my day job with

Friend Melissa

(see

12/5/07

). The emphasis of that writing was craving a return to that level of activity and physical maintenance, which has been a strong desire for me as well. What I learned from Sunday, however, is that part of the reason that's been so difficult for me is that it's been all me. I mean, not

all

me. On the occasions when we're working on a show together, Friend Heather and I train in acro a bit, and Friend Geoff and I both have a love/hate relationship with jogging, etc. What I mean to say is, I've discovered I've been missing more than the exercise. Last summer I worked myself into a muscle-bound frenzy (not so's you'd necessarily notice, mind you) for my part in

As Far As We Know

, but I wasn't building anything but myself, and it faded.

Sunday's rehearsal was even in a space that reminded me of

Friend Kate

's loft, where Kirkos met and tumbled about. It was in a, shall we say, less-developed section of Brooklyn, in a converted space with plenty of raw-lumber beams and old factory floorboards about. We climbed the stairs, removed our shoes, laid mats and started warming up. The warm-up wasn't just to loosen our joints, or "awake" our physical sensitivity, it was serious -- stretching out and warming up muscles and tendons that would soon be asked a lot of. We took our time, chatted, doped one anothers' stretches if they looked good, as a group will when they've worked together before and don't need to acknowledge social conventions. After a good, long warm-up, we began.

I'll skip the details of development. Suffice it to say that we choreographed quickly, everyone throwing in ideas and interpretations. Within minutes, I found myself performing tricks I had forgotten I'd known, and doing some I hadn't been able to do years before. The sensation was incredible. I'm not at this time in the greatest shape of my life, but working with an experienced acrobat like Cody made everything easier, and it does seem as though I've gotten stronger in some regard over the past few years. Though, by the end of the two hours, I was definitely quite winded. And, as I put it above, I

hurt

today.

All this leads me to conclude that it's past time for me to be regularly involved in this training again, whether I can find a group to join, or have to start one myself. The common approach for most of my acro friends of late has been to team up with someone who they can count on, train and prepare for performance opportunities with. And that's well and good, and works great, but I need a group. I need a community that can sustain itself even when I'm off in Italy, applying the skills from that group to my commedia dell'arte work. And it may be up to me to form it.

We may even have to meet on Sundays.

To-Day Is Wednesday, the 11th

The above is a phrase I'd like to coin, but one which will never come into common parlance. It's altogether too obscure. You, however, dear reader, will comprehend me when I speak it. You, and you alone, will have any clue what I'm trying to say. Bask in the glow of privilege.

In

One Week

(which, if my search criteria hasn't changed by now, you can see in its entirety in the video bar to the left), Buster Keaton uses inter cuts of a daily calendar to establish time in his movie, the central action of which is the construction -- and eventual destruction -- of a house. It's a DIY, build-by-numbers house, and a malevolent suitor switches some numbers on ol' Buster. The result is a great reveal, midway through the week, of a completed house that contains all the elements of "house," but is just awfully wrong. The roof is on the wrong way. one whole side seems pulled a la Dali out of its natural frame. And it spins.

The calendar page revealed just before this image appears informs us "To-Day Is / Wednesday / 11".

Sometimes you work on a show (or "project," for those of you less exhibitionist in nature), and you give it your all, and you're very excited to see it put together, because you know it's going to be some of your most impressive work, and the curtain goes up, and . . . it doesn't quite look like you thought it would. And it feels sort of false, especially for something you've put so much of yourself into. And you're not sure -- it could just be you -- but it seems as though the audience isn't being much more than overtly polite.

This, to me, is a "Wednesday the 11th." You can't figure where exactly you went wrong. You did everything you were supposed to, and, hell: you're a generally capable guy and/or girl. It's "Wednesday the 11ths" that bring us to those silent moments of questioning things like fate and the existence of God. You're not overwhelmed with grief, or shaking your rhetorical fist in the general direction of the allegorical heavens, but you are quietly talking to yourself in your mind. "Man, where did I go wrong? Am I being punished? How serious is this? Is this a sign? If it's mysterious in cause, it's got to be mysterious in significance, right? Man..."

It's really taxing to perform a show that didn't turn out even close to what you had hoped for, but the real long-term effect is in the questioning that can so easily result from it. Nine times out of ten, I'd say, you just missed something. It could happen to anyone. It doesn't mean we're less concerned with the virtues of our work if we accept this concept, and move on. Some days are simply Wednesdays, the 11th.