One of the really good things that came out of my whole bus debacle experience, was that sense of apart-ness I felt. It gave me new insight into my solo piece, and I might do a little re-write, or I might just change the arc of it in performance. The feeling of not belonging, of being an outsider and trying to copy the behavior around you, to blend in, to hide within it. The idea works with how it's already written. The original meaning for me was hearing your own truth amidst the loud voices that constantly cast judgment in your head, the ones so ingrained you don't even necessarily know where they came from, that act like rock solid truths, though they are not. Just someone else's ideas, hopes, and fears, that were never really meant to be yours, but got trapped inside you for a while. The things you have to wrestle free and release.
Every time you think you're done with these things, there is more. So much to let go.
I have a habit of dismantling (which at times, is remarkably painful, and irreversible.)
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Wednesday
The sky is blue, mostly clear, a silvery light, yellow leaves stubbornly hanging on to the one horse chestnut, like a gown: distractingly lovely. Just missed getting caught in the final deluge of the storm last night, ducked into a restaurant to kill time, and when I looked out the window, the sky was wringing itself out. By the time I left, the clouds were already clearing, all washed clean, sparkling stars and a quarter of a moon shining as I trudged my way up Queen Anne. The world is a beautiful place.
My physical therapist gave me the contact for a hip specialist. Fingers crossed that it's a cartilage tear (in the joint); even if that requires surgery, it beats the alternatives.
Opportunities have opened up like a flood gate. Don't even know how much they conflict, but I'm trying to making myself leap before I give it too much thought and make up excuses not to do them. Had a conversation with a director about directing, he asked if I was going for acting as an excuse to not do the directing, but I think if I pursued directing, it would be the opposite; when I was in college I kept doing more and more tech work (it's complicated) instead of pursuing acting when that's what I loved. And I was competent (in the back-of-house work), but maybe a little jealous, and maybe it kept me involved in the scene when I wasn't ready to perform, or maybe I was making excuses. Trying not to do that a second time. (Years ago, when I took an awful job to pay back my tuition, the man interviewing me said something about "not selling yourself short." And I took the job, though it wasn't the one I really wanted, perhaps I didn't feel I would get the other (dishwashing vs. waiting, for the record); I didn't stay there long, but man, his words stick with me.)
My hope is that we can all share a world where we have the basics, enough security to pursue our dreams. I wish harm on no one.
My physical therapist gave me the contact for a hip specialist. Fingers crossed that it's a cartilage tear (in the joint); even if that requires surgery, it beats the alternatives.
Opportunities have opened up like a flood gate. Don't even know how much they conflict, but I'm trying to making myself leap before I give it too much thought and make up excuses not to do them. Had a conversation with a director about directing, he asked if I was going for acting as an excuse to not do the directing, but I think if I pursued directing, it would be the opposite; when I was in college I kept doing more and more tech work (it's complicated) instead of pursuing acting when that's what I loved. And I was competent (in the back-of-house work), but maybe a little jealous, and maybe it kept me involved in the scene when I wasn't ready to perform, or maybe I was making excuses. Trying not to do that a second time. (Years ago, when I took an awful job to pay back my tuition, the man interviewing me said something about "not selling yourself short." And I took the job, though it wasn't the one I really wanted, perhaps I didn't feel I would get the other (dishwashing vs. waiting, for the record); I didn't stay there long, but man, his words stick with me.)
My hope is that we can all share a world where we have the basics, enough security to pursue our dreams. I wish harm on no one.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Back Home
Tried to make it to a show tonight, there was a pick-up point, and the show itself is in a secret location, really wanted to go. First bus was slow, and we were late getting downtown, so missed my transfer (a seven minute window, and we didn't make the window.) Transferred onto a different bus and asked the bus driver if he went to that stop, he said, "yes," but in the end, misunderstood where I had wanted to go, and I asked at one point if I'd missed the stop, but he thought I wanted to go to a stop on Harbor Island (apparently), at which point I looked out and said I wasn't getting off there, and asked if he went anywhere where there would be people around (it was underneath the freeway on Harbor Island. No.) He dropped me off in W. Seattle, where upon I ran up the block in the street to catch a bus coming back toward town, but by the time we got to the first stop, I was already too late. I did leave with enough time to get there.
The whole thing left me feeling frazzled and slightly traumatized (can't explain that, but that's how I felt: on the bus, on the bus back downtown, waiting, and all the way home; can't explain it, like experiencing something that makes you feel separate, and you have to "fake" normal? Don't know how to explain it. Not pleasant.) Maybe it was a combination of missing the show, low blood sugar, maybe hormones, I don't know. Starting to feel normal. See I have a call on my phone that I missed because (of course) I realized I didn't have it when I was running for the first bus, and didn't have time to go back and get it. Crap.
The whole thing left me feeling frazzled and slightly traumatized (can't explain that, but that's how I felt: on the bus, on the bus back downtown, waiting, and all the way home; can't explain it, like experiencing something that makes you feel separate, and you have to "fake" normal? Don't know how to explain it. Not pleasant.) Maybe it was a combination of missing the show, low blood sugar, maybe hormones, I don't know. Starting to feel normal. See I have a call on my phone that I missed because (of course) I realized I didn't have it when I was running for the first bus, and didn't have time to go back and get it. Crap.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Art and Water
Running my jacket through the dryer for the second time (first time I finally broke down and washed the thing, since it was already soaked through) and happily finally able to remove my socks after they got soaked through four hours ago, apparently, my boots are in no way waterproof. And I guess I'm probably not going to make it to a show I wanted to see. Ugh. Been very wet out today.
Went to the Henry to do an activation, but the other two people scheduled were late, and had to run off to a class at 2 pm, so I just facilitated them doing an activation, then waited around to see if one of the staff would work with me on one later on. (We didn't. Most of the pieces take four people to activate, a couple take two, and one takes nine.) But in the intervening time, had a good talk about the architecture of the building with the same man that had handed me the dart on a previous outing ("Half the Air in the Given Space"), and joined a gallery talk about drawing. Then talked briefly with two of the exhibit/curation staff about perception. I mentioned the play "Molly Sweeney" by Brian Friel, which had recently played in town, about a woman who went blind very early in life, and then as an adult is convinced into having a surgery to regain sight, and the consequences/repercussions of that. One of them mentioned hearing a similar story about someone who'd been deaf and had been given an operation to hear, and had then asked to have it reversed because they couldn't deal with all the stimuli.
Last week, we did the activations at the Chapel space in the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. (It used to be a home for "wayward" girls, and now is a community space, with offices, the chapel performance space, and a few apartments.) There was a noticeable difference between the gallery opening and the chapel activations. In the Henry, (well, there'd been alcohol, too) there was a lot of greeting and chatting going on between people, and while they might have been paying attention, they weren't focused on the activations. (Although, when one of the pieces went from a wide distance between the activators, to just a few feet, the crowd grew in numbers, and they got closer, and quieter, even though in the latter, all you could see were the backs of the activators.) In the Chapel space, there was almost complete silence and reverence for about half an hour; a certain sacredness in the way the activators handled the cloth and laid it out before putting it on; a stillness (mental, as well as physical) in the active time with the sculpture. I was definitely more focused, though that was also in part that I knew what to expect.
In the panel discussion after, the artist mentioned that the activators are in a sense, their own audience, they don't need anyone else to witness the act. He also talked about how no one knew what to do with his work in Europe back in the 60's, there wasn't a language to talk about it (which is an interesting concept in itself.) It wasn't until he came to New York that his work was shown, and still today, he considers his contemporaries (in the type of sculpture he does) to be artists working today, and this is 50 years later.
My pen wasn't working too well at the time, so my notes are sketchy, but there was the idea that he has always drawn, and used drawings to document the activations rather than photographs. That drawing could capture something of the inner workings of the participants in a way that photographs could not. To catch the spirit of it. Also, that the material/drawing are the bones of the work, but the activators are needed to be the flesh of it, to make them fully realized (though they exist in two forms: in storage, and activated.)
I want to write more about perception in relation to "Molly Sweeney," have wanted to since I saw it, but want to read it first. So, not yet.
Went to the Henry to do an activation, but the other two people scheduled were late, and had to run off to a class at 2 pm, so I just facilitated them doing an activation, then waited around to see if one of the staff would work with me on one later on. (We didn't. Most of the pieces take four people to activate, a couple take two, and one takes nine.) But in the intervening time, had a good talk about the architecture of the building with the same man that had handed me the dart on a previous outing ("Half the Air in the Given Space"), and joined a gallery talk about drawing. Then talked briefly with two of the exhibit/curation staff about perception. I mentioned the play "Molly Sweeney" by Brian Friel, which had recently played in town, about a woman who went blind very early in life, and then as an adult is convinced into having a surgery to regain sight, and the consequences/repercussions of that. One of them mentioned hearing a similar story about someone who'd been deaf and had been given an operation to hear, and had then asked to have it reversed because they couldn't deal with all the stimuli.
Last week, we did the activations at the Chapel space in the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. (It used to be a home for "wayward" girls, and now is a community space, with offices, the chapel performance space, and a few apartments.) There was a noticeable difference between the gallery opening and the chapel activations. In the Henry, (well, there'd been alcohol, too) there was a lot of greeting and chatting going on between people, and while they might have been paying attention, they weren't focused on the activations. (Although, when one of the pieces went from a wide distance between the activators, to just a few feet, the crowd grew in numbers, and they got closer, and quieter, even though in the latter, all you could see were the backs of the activators.) In the Chapel space, there was almost complete silence and reverence for about half an hour; a certain sacredness in the way the activators handled the cloth and laid it out before putting it on; a stillness (mental, as well as physical) in the active time with the sculpture. I was definitely more focused, though that was also in part that I knew what to expect.
In the panel discussion after, the artist mentioned that the activators are in a sense, their own audience, they don't need anyone else to witness the act. He also talked about how no one knew what to do with his work in Europe back in the 60's, there wasn't a language to talk about it (which is an interesting concept in itself.) It wasn't until he came to New York that his work was shown, and still today, he considers his contemporaries (in the type of sculpture he does) to be artists working today, and this is 50 years later.
My pen wasn't working too well at the time, so my notes are sketchy, but there was the idea that he has always drawn, and used drawings to document the activations rather than photographs. That drawing could capture something of the inner workings of the participants in a way that photographs could not. To catch the spirit of it. Also, that the material/drawing are the bones of the work, but the activators are needed to be the flesh of it, to make them fully realized (though they exist in two forms: in storage, and activated.)
I want to write more about perception in relation to "Molly Sweeney," have wanted to since I saw it, but want to read it first. So, not yet.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Go See This
The autumn colors linger into November, deepening into reds and oranges not usually seen, a nice contrast with the morning showers. Now the sun has come out, and the gray is lifting.
On Tuesday, I saw "Mr. Burns, a post-electric play," by AnneWashburn/Michael Friedman, dir. by John Langs, at ACT. It was $20-ticket night, the house was full. I don't want to review it here, only to say that it's worth seeing. It's exciting work, provocative, not as in titillation, but in that it fills my head with ideas, (and I'm trying to write about that, not where I want to be with it yet), and even if some people commented that it was hard to follow, I found it to be the type of theatre that thrills me (the whole big concept of the thing.)
The basic story is Act I, survivors of a nuclear catastrophe gather around a campfire and piece together the re-telling of the Simpson's episode called "Cape Fear," a story involving the movie "Cape Fear" as well as "Night of the Hunter." There is a ritual also of whenever someone new comes along of naming names to see who is alive.
Act II, same characters, seven years later. In some sorta' town or city, making "movies" of scenes in order to survive. A nice dance/song mash-up, routine here.
Act III, seventy-five years later, a musical/re-enactment of story, as it's evolved by that point. I'm gonna say that last one is open to interpretation as to what's going on, exactly, there might be a specific, but I don't want to know it, it's more interesting to wrestle with what exactly is happening, more fertile ground for thought and exploration. (What happens to stories as they are passed down over time through oral traditions? What gains and loses significance depending on the teller or the audience? Or what drives the need to repeat the story? What do we do with it? How does it shape our culture or our identity? What do we accept as unassailable "truth" over time, where did it come from? Are we willing to seek the source or do we blindly accept the way things are assuming they were always that way? How do societies change or advance over time? Who controls the message?)
A fantastic cast: Anne Allgood, Christine Marie Brown, Andrew Lee Creech, Erik Gratton, Claudine Mboligikpelani Nako, Bhama Roget, Adam Standley, and Robertson Witmer. An especially fine job of physical acting by Standley (Mr. Burns), Mboligikpelani Nako (Itchy), and Creech (Scratchy) as the heinous "bad guys" in Act III. So good.
On Tuesday, I saw "Mr. Burns, a post-electric play," by AnneWashburn/Michael Friedman, dir. by John Langs, at ACT. It was $20-ticket night, the house was full. I don't want to review it here, only to say that it's worth seeing. It's exciting work, provocative, not as in titillation, but in that it fills my head with ideas, (and I'm trying to write about that, not where I want to be with it yet), and even if some people commented that it was hard to follow, I found it to be the type of theatre that thrills me (the whole big concept of the thing.)
The basic story is Act I, survivors of a nuclear catastrophe gather around a campfire and piece together the re-telling of the Simpson's episode called "Cape Fear," a story involving the movie "Cape Fear" as well as "Night of the Hunter." There is a ritual also of whenever someone new comes along of naming names to see who is alive.
Act II, same characters, seven years later. In some sorta' town or city, making "movies" of scenes in order to survive. A nice dance/song mash-up, routine here.
Act III, seventy-five years later, a musical/re-enactment of story, as it's evolved by that point. I'm gonna say that last one is open to interpretation as to what's going on, exactly, there might be a specific, but I don't want to know it, it's more interesting to wrestle with what exactly is happening, more fertile ground for thought and exploration. (What happens to stories as they are passed down over time through oral traditions? What gains and loses significance depending on the teller or the audience? Or what drives the need to repeat the story? What do we do with it? How does it shape our culture or our identity? What do we accept as unassailable "truth" over time, where did it come from? Are we willing to seek the source or do we blindly accept the way things are assuming they were always that way? How do societies change or advance over time? Who controls the message?)
A fantastic cast: Anne Allgood, Christine Marie Brown, Andrew Lee Creech, Erik Gratton, Claudine Mboligikpelani Nako, Bhama Roget, Adam Standley, and Robertson Witmer. An especially fine job of physical acting by Standley (Mr. Burns), Mboligikpelani Nako (Itchy), and Creech (Scratchy) as the heinous "bad guys" in Act III. So good.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Pictures from Tuesday
Hit about a 3-hour window of calm weather. It was actually sunny before I got off of work, but I couldn't leave yet. Got a lot done, but not all. Pulled up most of the tomatillos, and now I have to sort through a large bag's worth to decide if they are safe to consume or not (I have no idea what stage of ripeness they need to be, or that they have reached, since they basically stay the same color.) I left when it just began to rain, as I had a large (paper) bag of stuff to put in the yard waste bin. The rain picked up as I got off of the bus, but I made it home without the bag breaking. I'll have to go back tomorrow, regardless of the weather.
Is it support staff appreciation week? Two of the groups I help schedule rooms for (not my office) gave me gifts this week: a coffee cup (the kind with a lid, name is eluding me), and a gift certificate. Also won another gift basket from a different grocery store. This time nail polish, most of which I will probably re-gift. It's because I enter all the time.
Here are a few pictures from Tuesday.
Is it support staff appreciation week? Two of the groups I help schedule rooms for (not my office) gave me gifts this week: a coffee cup (the kind with a lid, name is eluding me), and a gift certificate. Also won another gift basket from a different grocery store. This time nail polish, most of which I will probably re-gift. It's because I enter all the time.
Here are a few pictures from Tuesday.
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| Heading out, October 27/L Herlevi 2015 |
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| Fog at Bainbridge, October 27/L Herlevi 2015 |
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| Into the unknown world, October 27/L Herlevi 2015 |
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| Obscure, October 27/L Herlevi 2015 |
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| Emptiness, October 27/L Herlevi 2015 |
Friday
Woke up to a dark, wet, and now, blustery morning. A month's worth of rain in two days. And I need to clean up my garden today and tomorrow. It's my own doing of course, I was hoping things would ripen a bit more (tomatillos, for one), and I haven't had time to get back since last Saturday.
On Tuesday (the nicest day of the week), took the ferry out to Bainbridge to visit with friends, I think it's been four years (!) since I've seen any of them. Caught the boat home as the sun was dropping low, fog lingering, water calm, and a relatively quiet ferry ride. Gliding back toward the city, only an outline in the fog, but always visible, as was the Mountain, there was a sense of sailing into the unknown, like being at the edge of the known world: serene, yet desolate, and a pervading sense of melancholy, that took me a day to shake, even though I walked off the ferry to go have dinner with another group of friends. Ah, maybe it's the weather, the time of year, the season of Scorpio, the silence, the sense of impending loss (real or imagined.) Again, the idea of what am I waiting for, why am I holding my breath?
Cooked dinner for some college students on Wednesday, and by the time that was over, the melancholy had lifted. The result of action, I think; and giving. We made chili. It was edible, but would've been improved by more salt, and a longer cooking time. Also, we made way too much.
Did my first "activation" of the sculpture work last night. I watched the second group, they did the same pieces, I think. Watched to see how they determined when to take it off, you do everything at the same time. Also, I found I wanted mostly to look at the people, and not at the form itself, had to train myself to look at the overall shape. I'm signed up again on Saturday, as part of a public lecture.
There are a ton of shows I want to see, lot of friends doing work right now. I really need to get off my butt and audition.
Cheers.
On Tuesday (the nicest day of the week), took the ferry out to Bainbridge to visit with friends, I think it's been four years (!) since I've seen any of them. Caught the boat home as the sun was dropping low, fog lingering, water calm, and a relatively quiet ferry ride. Gliding back toward the city, only an outline in the fog, but always visible, as was the Mountain, there was a sense of sailing into the unknown, like being at the edge of the known world: serene, yet desolate, and a pervading sense of melancholy, that took me a day to shake, even though I walked off the ferry to go have dinner with another group of friends. Ah, maybe it's the weather, the time of year, the season of Scorpio, the silence, the sense of impending loss (real or imagined.) Again, the idea of what am I waiting for, why am I holding my breath?
Cooked dinner for some college students on Wednesday, and by the time that was over, the melancholy had lifted. The result of action, I think; and giving. We made chili. It was edible, but would've been improved by more salt, and a longer cooking time. Also, we made way too much.
Did my first "activation" of the sculpture work last night. I watched the second group, they did the same pieces, I think. Watched to see how they determined when to take it off, you do everything at the same time. Also, I found I wanted mostly to look at the people, and not at the form itself, had to train myself to look at the overall shape. I'm signed up again on Saturday, as part of a public lecture.
There are a ton of shows I want to see, lot of friends doing work right now. I really need to get off my butt and audition.
Cheers.
Monday, October 26, 2015
Stuff happening
Feeling more inspired, looking at classes for winter: an acting class working in verse (which I'll have to audition for), or a beginning play-writing class (which I'll have to apply for), or some other story-oriented courses. Any of them would be useful. I've been thinking a lot about story telling, what I like to see/hear, and I don't know if I can do it yet, but since that auditioning class year, it's been on my mind whenever I watch a show: what is the point-of-view? What is the director/writer trying to get at? And the projects that work best for me as an audience member, are the ones where I can engage in at that level, and I realize that's not important to everyone, but I want it. I'd like to figure out how to do it. (I can be all over the map, myself.)
Also, I skipped this art training (and was thankfully able to do a make-up session on Saturday) in order to attend this party at the Burke Museum on Thursday, where the drinks were strong and after having one I had conversations about poison frogs while I casually picked up mollusks and let them cruise along my hand (the snail was interested, the slug sorta' went to sleep.) Later I moved on to have a long discussion about spiders with a spider expert (those big, purplish spiders running across the floor and hanging out in the bathtub are probably male spiders looking for a mate. The females are usually hiding somewhere. They all spend their whole lives in your house, beneficial, as they eat other insects in the house. Not likely to ever actually bother you. European house spiders.) I guess you could also have held a tarantula or a snake, but those lines were longer, so I didn't. And opossums are remarkably soft, just as a reference, you probably don't want to be petting one in your yard. (And whoever planned that event, that was a brilliant marketing move, both for fundraising, and for getting people into the museum; they had to turn people away.)
The art training was to be an "activator" for Franz Erhard Walther cloth sculptures. A friend had printed out the volunteer opportunities at the Henry Art Gallery and left the paper on my desk, so I signed up, not really knowing what it meant; I thought it was helping the public directly interact with the material. Instead, we unfold the clothes and then "put them on," and essentially become part of the sculpture itself. These are all from the 1960's, I think. The artist was there on Saturday to go over them and answer questions. We will only be able to "activate" ones that we practiced with. There is one where two people are essentially yoked by the material, about three feet apart and facing each other, and that one almost feels like performance art. There is something that happens in the intimacy of the distance, much like the chair work in Meisner. I didn't actually do it on Saturday, but I learned it, so I can do it in the future. I want to do it, I'm curious how we will react. All the other ones were held taut, but this one can't be because it's around your neck; someone commented that it felt like the material was alive, because it moved with the breathing. Anyway, there's an open house on Thursday, and the show runs through March. Not sure how often the sculptures will be activated.
That two-person one made me think about cultural differences with distance and contact. The artist mentioned that once, when another piece where people step through, facing one another, was in a gallery in Europe, how a man from one culture just stood still the whole time, and the woman facing him, from another culture kept walking back and forth through it. I find it all very interesting. (Like in greeting and leave taking, do you bow, shake hands, kiss, hug?) Anyway, I'm excited to be a part of this.
After the training there was an "art break" where a group of us experienced and discussed Pae White's "Command-Shift-4" which is downstairs. Inspired by the supergraphics of Sea Ranch, California, it's made of yarn, paint, and numbers. Someone commented that it was similar to the "half the air in a given space" exhibit in the filling up the space with very little, how all (except the bull head), the materials in this show could fit in a paper box, and yet they take up the entire ballroom. I was wondering how different generations see it, for instance, spending my early childhood in the 70's, it made me think of funk, cartoons, album covers, and Detroit. One of the curators, who must be around the same age, got the references, but didn't think of Detroit (as he is actually from there.) But what does someone born in 2000 or 1990 think of? I had a very strong, distinct reaction to it, I don't usually (though I cried when I stood in front of both El Greco's "The Holy Trinity" (something about the face of the angel in blue) and Picasso's "Guernika.") Triggered memories. (And I love the tours and the discussions that bring more depth to the experience of art.)
Also, found out about a show I was hoping to see, so will definitely try to go, and just got back into cold-reading practice again.
Been in a bit of a funk, but waking up again.
Also, I skipped this art training (and was thankfully able to do a make-up session on Saturday) in order to attend this party at the Burke Museum on Thursday, where the drinks were strong and after having one I had conversations about poison frogs while I casually picked up mollusks and let them cruise along my hand (the snail was interested, the slug sorta' went to sleep.) Later I moved on to have a long discussion about spiders with a spider expert (those big, purplish spiders running across the floor and hanging out in the bathtub are probably male spiders looking for a mate. The females are usually hiding somewhere. They all spend their whole lives in your house, beneficial, as they eat other insects in the house. Not likely to ever actually bother you. European house spiders.) I guess you could also have held a tarantula or a snake, but those lines were longer, so I didn't. And opossums are remarkably soft, just as a reference, you probably don't want to be petting one in your yard. (And whoever planned that event, that was a brilliant marketing move, both for fundraising, and for getting people into the museum; they had to turn people away.)
The art training was to be an "activator" for Franz Erhard Walther cloth sculptures. A friend had printed out the volunteer opportunities at the Henry Art Gallery and left the paper on my desk, so I signed up, not really knowing what it meant; I thought it was helping the public directly interact with the material. Instead, we unfold the clothes and then "put them on," and essentially become part of the sculpture itself. These are all from the 1960's, I think. The artist was there on Saturday to go over them and answer questions. We will only be able to "activate" ones that we practiced with. There is one where two people are essentially yoked by the material, about three feet apart and facing each other, and that one almost feels like performance art. There is something that happens in the intimacy of the distance, much like the chair work in Meisner. I didn't actually do it on Saturday, but I learned it, so I can do it in the future. I want to do it, I'm curious how we will react. All the other ones were held taut, but this one can't be because it's around your neck; someone commented that it felt like the material was alive, because it moved with the breathing. Anyway, there's an open house on Thursday, and the show runs through March. Not sure how often the sculptures will be activated.
That two-person one made me think about cultural differences with distance and contact. The artist mentioned that once, when another piece where people step through, facing one another, was in a gallery in Europe, how a man from one culture just stood still the whole time, and the woman facing him, from another culture kept walking back and forth through it. I find it all very interesting. (Like in greeting and leave taking, do you bow, shake hands, kiss, hug?) Anyway, I'm excited to be a part of this.
After the training there was an "art break" where a group of us experienced and discussed Pae White's "Command-Shift-4" which is downstairs. Inspired by the supergraphics of Sea Ranch, California, it's made of yarn, paint, and numbers. Someone commented that it was similar to the "half the air in a given space" exhibit in the filling up the space with very little, how all (except the bull head), the materials in this show could fit in a paper box, and yet they take up the entire ballroom. I was wondering how different generations see it, for instance, spending my early childhood in the 70's, it made me think of funk, cartoons, album covers, and Detroit. One of the curators, who must be around the same age, got the references, but didn't think of Detroit (as he is actually from there.) But what does someone born in 2000 or 1990 think of? I had a very strong, distinct reaction to it, I don't usually (though I cried when I stood in front of both El Greco's "The Holy Trinity" (something about the face of the angel in blue) and Picasso's "Guernika.") Triggered memories. (And I love the tours and the discussions that bring more depth to the experience of art.)
Also, found out about a show I was hoping to see, so will definitely try to go, and just got back into cold-reading practice again.
Been in a bit of a funk, but waking up again.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Only this
Took the day off yesterday. Had PT in the morning, after freaking myself out all weekend about the hip issue, and wondering if it meant that I'd be unable to walk shortly; contacted my regular doctor over the phone and she just prescribed stronger anti-inflammatories...anyway, felt better after the PT, so maybe it really is just my back. Read and watched movies, interspersed with walks, all day. Got no gardening done (which had been my intention.) Still, walking around the lake mid-day felt somewhat like an illicit joy, like playing hooky. With the exception of summer vacations, I've rarely had a weekday afternoon truly free, where I didn't have to: 1) do homework; 2) be somewhere later; 3) look for a place to live; or some other task. Weekends just don't have the same feeling, and I didn't have any free time last weekend, and no other free nights this week or next.
On Saturday morning, I'd gone to get coffee and then ended up half-way around the lake, kneeling on a dock and staring into the reflection on the water, mesmerized. There was something about the angle of the sun, the clouds, the darkness of the water, and almost (but not quite) stillness of the surface that made me lose sense of perspective, losing sense of where the edge of the dock was in comparison to the water, and I had a sense of looking into infinity. Ducks quacked and whistled in the glare of the sun, enough that I couldn't make out who they were. The eastern sky above the mountains had a pinkish-orange tone, even though it was long past sunrise. There was rain falling high in the sky, gray curtains; a wind must have been blowing, pushing the lower half of the curtain at a 90 degree angle to the upper half, making the sky look like a mirror. I was there for longer than I'd planned. (I was kneeling because it's the only way I could sit.) I heard a man's voice call out behind me, "It's a nice place to meditate." I turned and looked at him to answer. He asked, "Who designed the lake?" And I answered something about water retention, because an old roommate used to make fun of the lake, saying it wasn't "real" that it was only storm run-off. (And while that's where the in-flow comes from now, it was actually carved by a glacier, and got it's name because of algal blooms. It used to cover more area, but when they put in Hwy 99, the area around got filled, the former creek flows that fed and drained the lake got covered over, and now it is pretty stagnant. But it is a natural formation...I looked it up after.) We said a few other things and he left. He looked familiar, but I can't place him; some former life, I suppose. Anyway, I wasn't carrying a camera, which I usually do, because I hadn't planned on walking there, yet, but the coffee shop was across the street...so, no pictures. Only in my mind.
Ran into a friend as I started walking again, he turned around and walked with me, we talked about theatre, and perception, and truth, and witnessing. I might write more on that later, not ready yet.
And because of the walking issue, was glad that I decided to finally walk in Spain when I did, and as much as I did (almost 2,000 miles.) And then other things I've learned this week, just made me think about what I (we) get hung up on, why we don't say "yes" when we can, the petty things that don't matter, when do we think "life will happen," when is this "tomorrow" or later?...There will never be the perfect moment to do something. What the hell are we (I) waiting for?
On Saturday morning, I'd gone to get coffee and then ended up half-way around the lake, kneeling on a dock and staring into the reflection on the water, mesmerized. There was something about the angle of the sun, the clouds, the darkness of the water, and almost (but not quite) stillness of the surface that made me lose sense of perspective, losing sense of where the edge of the dock was in comparison to the water, and I had a sense of looking into infinity. Ducks quacked and whistled in the glare of the sun, enough that I couldn't make out who they were. The eastern sky above the mountains had a pinkish-orange tone, even though it was long past sunrise. There was rain falling high in the sky, gray curtains; a wind must have been blowing, pushing the lower half of the curtain at a 90 degree angle to the upper half, making the sky look like a mirror. I was there for longer than I'd planned. (I was kneeling because it's the only way I could sit.) I heard a man's voice call out behind me, "It's a nice place to meditate." I turned and looked at him to answer. He asked, "Who designed the lake?" And I answered something about water retention, because an old roommate used to make fun of the lake, saying it wasn't "real" that it was only storm run-off. (And while that's where the in-flow comes from now, it was actually carved by a glacier, and got it's name because of algal blooms. It used to cover more area, but when they put in Hwy 99, the area around got filled, the former creek flows that fed and drained the lake got covered over, and now it is pretty stagnant. But it is a natural formation...I looked it up after.) We said a few other things and he left. He looked familiar, but I can't place him; some former life, I suppose. Anyway, I wasn't carrying a camera, which I usually do, because I hadn't planned on walking there, yet, but the coffee shop was across the street...so, no pictures. Only in my mind.
Ran into a friend as I started walking again, he turned around and walked with me, we talked about theatre, and perception, and truth, and witnessing. I might write more on that later, not ready yet.
And because of the walking issue, was glad that I decided to finally walk in Spain when I did, and as much as I did (almost 2,000 miles.) And then other things I've learned this week, just made me think about what I (we) get hung up on, why we don't say "yes" when we can, the petty things that don't matter, when do we think "life will happen," when is this "tomorrow" or later?...There will never be the perfect moment to do something. What the hell are we (I) waiting for?
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Friday
Friday.
In the morning, I search your face as the sun seeks you under the overpass. And writing now, hours later, I can't recall what I'd hoped to find.
At the performance, arriving late, just as it had begun, so waiting further off on the sidewalk, while most everyone gathered in a parking lot, encircled by runners. A beginning. Feeling left out, ceremony. People wearing name tags, I wondered if I should have one, too? (And when we entered the lobby after, I did make one, though it was unnecessary.) Instructed to move closer when the dancers/runners stopped, a story began. New ways of thinking about the streets (what was before, and before that? What ghosts walk alongside us?) Wondering about the whales, was that just part of a story or are they here, waiting along the waterfront? (Someone saw whales at Deception Pass, not the southern pods, who only eat fish, these ate a mammal, perhaps a migration.) And then we marched solemnly together through the neighborhood and into the theatre, smoke sat heavily along the floor and the performers gathered and waited on the stage. And so it continued. I was a witness, though I don't know what happened.
Going home after, as I got off of the first bus, a man lying on his back on the sidewalk in front of me, hands at his side, luggage three feet south of his feet. I stopped and watched his breath, not sure if I should approach any closer. Not sure if he was alive. He did breath, then his left hand twitched, as I continued to watch him, he rolled to his side, eventually sat up, I asked if he was all right, he nodded, I can only guess if it was in answer. He lay back down. A woman further down the street waved me over, asked if we should call 911, neither of us had a phone. A bus pulled up and she told the driver, he proceeded to get off of the bus and walk over to the man, said something to him, told us he recognized the man, that he was drunk, that he would call someone. Her bus arrived, I crossed the street to wait. He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, unbalanced legs wide. Sat down, pulled his luggage (a blanket in one of those plastic zipper things they come in) over to him, zipper broken. I began to read, when I looked up again, he was gone. Just his luggage there. I worked my eyes to the corner, he was talking to another man, then stumbled into the street, traffic coming, he made it across and wandered off into the night, I prayed any angels to spare to watch him tonight. As my bus pulled up, I heard another man say, "oh, shit" and then the sound of piss hitting the sidewalk as I got on the bus. No inhibition. Sirens blare in succession the whole time I wait.
In the morning, I search your face as the sun seeks you under the overpass. And writing now, hours later, I can't recall what I'd hoped to find.
At the performance, arriving late, just as it had begun, so waiting further off on the sidewalk, while most everyone gathered in a parking lot, encircled by runners. A beginning. Feeling left out, ceremony. People wearing name tags, I wondered if I should have one, too? (And when we entered the lobby after, I did make one, though it was unnecessary.) Instructed to move closer when the dancers/runners stopped, a story began. New ways of thinking about the streets (what was before, and before that? What ghosts walk alongside us?) Wondering about the whales, was that just part of a story or are they here, waiting along the waterfront? (Someone saw whales at Deception Pass, not the southern pods, who only eat fish, these ate a mammal, perhaps a migration.) And then we marched solemnly together through the neighborhood and into the theatre, smoke sat heavily along the floor and the performers gathered and waited on the stage. And so it continued. I was a witness, though I don't know what happened.
Going home after, as I got off of the first bus, a man lying on his back on the sidewalk in front of me, hands at his side, luggage three feet south of his feet. I stopped and watched his breath, not sure if I should approach any closer. Not sure if he was alive. He did breath, then his left hand twitched, as I continued to watch him, he rolled to his side, eventually sat up, I asked if he was all right, he nodded, I can only guess if it was in answer. He lay back down. A woman further down the street waved me over, asked if we should call 911, neither of us had a phone. A bus pulled up and she told the driver, he proceeded to get off of the bus and walk over to the man, said something to him, told us he recognized the man, that he was drunk, that he would call someone. Her bus arrived, I crossed the street to wait. He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, unbalanced legs wide. Sat down, pulled his luggage (a blanket in one of those plastic zipper things they come in) over to him, zipper broken. I began to read, when I looked up again, he was gone. Just his luggage there. I worked my eyes to the corner, he was talking to another man, then stumbled into the street, traffic coming, he made it across and wandered off into the night, I prayed any angels to spare to watch him tonight. As my bus pulled up, I heard another man say, "oh, shit" and then the sound of piss hitting the sidewalk as I got on the bus. No inhibition. Sirens blare in succession the whole time I wait.
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