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.

OMG LOLcats r KILLINZ MAE

Srsly. I can has releef? Frum LOLcats nd all ther kaind?

I feel like such a freaking doof (read: doofus, only less significant). I was generally aware of the LOLcat phenomenon when it began to crystallize into what it is today, but then I forgot about it. I mean, it's pictures of cats, with blocky fonts applied. It will not affect my life. Or so I assumed...

For those of you not in the know, worry not:

Wikipedia's got you covered

. It includes gems of explanation for the LOLcat phenomenon like a link to the brief

Time

(get it?) article devoted to them, and paraphrasing their use grammar thusly -- "Common themes include jokes of the form 'Im in ur

noun

,

verb

-ing ur

related noun

.'" It also links me to

this interesting wiki-nugget

, which helps me to understand why I am so enamored of teh LOLcats. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First I must explain my love-hate relationship.

Everything about teh LOLcats seems engineered to piss me off. (For [nigh endless] examples, go

here

.) I mean

everything

.

First of all, it's pictures of cutesy animals, which reminds me utterly of those cat and/or dog and/or other-small-animal mavens one finds in any office of America. You know, she's usually a she, and she has a cubicle covered in pictures of baby ducklings or some such. It just reminds me of porn. Sick, I know, but it does. Those people covet animals like others covet wealth or sex or spiritual fulfillment.

Second, LOLcats are self-generating inside humor, which is just irritating. There's nothing quite so grotesque as when people revel in how "inside" their jokes are. Exclusivity is practically a disqualification from the category of humor, altogether! ("Exclusivity is practically...") Humor is a tool in communication, not exclusion, and though I'm not accusing the LOLcat-erz of intending to do so, they're nevertheless excludin' teh masses. But I lie: A running gag that is largely unappreciated is even more grotesque than a simple inside joke.

Thirdly, the spelling and grammar are intentionally wrong. Do you understand? THE SPELLING AND GRAMMAR ARE

INTENTIONALLY

WRONG. That is so messed up! I get irate over misplaced apostrophes, and I'm subjected to dialogue superimposed over cat photographs and written out in "texting" language and gobbledy-gook? Holy sack of hammers! I ought to be trying to eradicate all LOLcats and their makers, not writing a 'blog entry about them.

Yet. I love the LOLcats. It's driving me crazy that I can't get their syntax out of my head. They're responsible for a lot of time wastage of late. They are obnoxious, and not remotely cool, and they are inside and ridiculous, and I heart LOLcats.

I'm beginning to understand why, too. In the first, for reasons inexplicable by modern science, I've been wanting a cat lately. I have been an adamant dog person my entire life, and I still prefer dumb-and-loyal animals (I relate to them better), but cats are more appealing now. I don't know. Maybe it's living in the city this long. I want a pet who knows where to poop and how to get there. More significant for me, however, is this use of language in the photos.

Language is simply cool. In general. It rules. Language is fascinating and mysterious to me, and I enjoy anything that plays with it. Correction: Anything that plays with it

and contains an interior logic

. So people constantly confusing the uses of "take" and "bring" drive me up a wall, and a text message that says "ill talk 2 u later" (You'll talk to me later, or you're ill, and I should bring you soup?) drives me kabonkers. But LOLcats, partly through the profusion of them, have developed a rather complex psychology behind their lunatic ravings. They've even developed a mimic

mythology

. Stupid? Oui. Ma forse, anche genius.

Hi. I'm an actor.

It's true. I act. Not just, you know, the way everybody acts. I mean, everyone takes action. I do it differently. See, I do it in front of people.

Oh. Oh, you do too? Well, I'm not making myself clear, obviously. See, I take action that I plan out days or weeks in advance, according to a specific order. Except that, see, when I'm acting

well

, I usually don't know what I'll do next. I'll do something else instead, and that makes everything go better. More unpredictable, and real. But I have to use lots of planning, too, to make that spontenaity more useful to me.

That sounds familiar too, huh? Okay. All right. Oh! Oh! How about this? I have to learn and memorize all this information that means little-to-nothing to anyone else, and am expected to regurgitate that information on cue. In fact, in terms of job security, I have to keep re-applying to my job. Sometimes my life seems like nothing more than a series of challenges, a sequence of putting out fires or keeping multiple pots from boiling over, so that it's all I can do to keep up with it all and get to the next day.

This really doesn't sound unique to you, does it? I can tell by your silence, and your facial expression.

That's it! I have an extraordinary sense of people's emotions! I am an emotional communicator extraordinaire, to the extant that, when I see people smile, I know I've made them happy, and when their eyes get wet, I know they're sort of overcome by...something...and...and...

Crap. I give up. I don't know distinguishes an actor from a "normal person." I've heard it said before that actors are simply normal people with the volume turned up, or slightly different balances of priorities, but the undefined-ness of those statements bugs the detritus from out of my person (look at the lengths I'll go to just not to repeat "crap" [Crap!] in the same paragraph). What is normal? Who defines that? Is it merely a statistical average? Median? Mean? (That does seem pretty mean, but who am I to judge?) Is it community defined? In which case, is that why so many actors feel more normal living in New York, because everyone's a bit more neurotic than the rest of the country?

I quote

The Muppets Take Manhattan

: "Peoples is peoples."

Misanthropic

Last night, with Friends Kate and Patrick, I went to see, of all things, a production of Moliere's

The Misanthrope

. ("Of all things," because of

my recent entry

on eschewing email.) I say "Moliere's," but that not quite where all credit is due when it comes to this production. The play was reinterpreted--as is often

New York Theatre Workshop

's wont--through Messrs. Tony Harrison (translating playwright) and Ivo van Hove (director). I knew this going in, and feared the worst. "Deconstruction" is one of my least favorite words, and I feel a similar hostility toward the process in most cases. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to discover that the interpretation didn't fudge with the language in any grotesque ways. We still had rhyming couplets. We still had scene partners, and all that good (albeit old-fashioned) stuff.

I loved the show overall. The only moments it really lost me were a couple of scenes in which some of the actors playing supporting characters (Moliere is so great about every character getting a good bit in) seemed to make a choice to alternate suddenly between two volume levels: conversational and very VERY LOUD. These moments, though distinct and perplexing, were few, and for the most part the show was exceedingly interesting and accessible at the same time, which is no mean feat. The set design and choreography were striking, and may have overshadowed the acting, had the leads not been so bold within them. The space was like a minimalist/brutalist architect's waiting room, with fluorescent lighting and grey walls, encased on three sides in smoked glass. Up center were three flat-screen monitors rigged side-by-side and set in the back wall to function as a unit. Throughout the action of the play, the set was gradually (though occasionally also suddenly) besmoot with food stuff and garbage, which was just marvelous. There's nothing like the unconventional use of food products on stage.

There's a bit of an informal axiom bandied about by theatre types regarding Chekhov's full-length plays, particularly

The Cherry Orchard

. It has to do with everyone loving to inform and remind one another that good ol' Chekhov called it a COMEDY, and that the play is usually taken too seriously. Well, I'm no authority on Chekhov, God knows. God also knows I'm not acredited as a Moliere expert. However. I would like to posit that, in the converse of the Chekhov axiom, Moliere rarely gets taken seriously enough. It seems to me that he wrote with incredible humor and lightness (not to mention rhythm), but that he was writing about very serious things and, in some cases, unanswerable questions of the human condition. So I like my Moliere with plenty of physical humor, yes, and as many dirty jokes as possible, but I also like at least the occasional bitter-sweet moment of truth. Think Charlie Chaplin. Give your clown a moment or two to cry.

This production of

The Misanthrope

struck what I thought was a wonderful balance between elements of madness and melancholy. If anything, it leaned a little more in the direction of serious theatre than I would have, but I think this is an important part of why it will leave a lasting impression on me. When I saw it last, in college, this play made me feel as though the misanthropic character, Alceste, was completely irrational. In this, though he acts more irrationally, I was convinced of his argument against hypocrisy. The party scene, which Alceste interrupts, was so familiar to me with its group seated around a meal of take-out food, cell phones and laptops flipping in and out, and talk of people not in the room. When he brings it to a halt, laying himself across the table, I thought, "Thank God." And somehow, when his tirade against them erupted into an incredible mess of food, mostly smeared all over himself, I was still with him.

One of the ideas that this interpretation in particular seemed to bring across was that there is no cure for hypocrisy. It's a part of human nature, be it a legitimate survival tool, or absurd self-defense, and a tool for ingratiation. Like hatred or greed, however, it needs to be brought to bear under more virtuous impulses, like love or charity. Or sincerity.

And don't buy an iPhone.

Frighted with False Fire?

There's been a change at the Aviary. Can you tell what it is? Go ahead. Have a look.

Seriously. It's cool. Look.

Give up? You didn't even try, did you? Come on. You know I'm way too stupid about web jib to do anything fancy; it's not like I could make the background pattern into an optical illusion or anything. (Man, but I wish I could make the background pattern into an optical illusion. [

Sailboat!

]) Try. Go ahead already.

That's right: my "Aspects" (the topics list down left) is now sorted by frequency, rather than alphabetically. I MUST REQUEST THAT YOU RETAIN YOUR COMPOSURE. Just breathe. Relax. We're gonna get through this. I can hear, through this magical series of tubes, your angst-ridden pleas for explanation. Allow me to address that: I don't know. Or, rather: Just 'cause. I've been thinking for some time now that once I had a good number of entries, it would be good to see what I'm writing about most and least often, and there you have it. Generally, that is. I think that, as a weblogger, I am a little topic-happy. There are generally 49 topics for each entry. What can I say? I like that feature. So every so often, if you use it, you'll get an entry that has only one sentence about the topic you were searching for. Sorry 'bout that.

I confess, too, that a little bit of pride goes into the resorting. People that I don't know, at all, are reading my 'blog with a certain nonchalant regularity, and now anyone who visits--assuming they're geek enough to scan the topic list--can see if what I concern myself with interests them or not. Theatre-philes will be pleased. People researching pigeons will probably pass me by. Interestingly enough (note I do not say "suprisingly enough"), as of the date of this entry, number 5 under "Aspects" is . . .

Anxiety

.

Now, this is interesting to me for a variety of reasons:

1. I kind of thought "anxiety" or "fear" would make the top three. In this sense, it's kind of an accomplishment.

1. Just last night I had a conversation with Friend Kate that addressed the topic of anxiety, both in general and as it pertains to yours truly, and it was revealed to me that the anxiety with which I approach many things can be a bit upsetting and tiresome. Why this never occurred to me before, I have no idea, but she's right.

1. Anxiety was an energy that a lot of my acting used to be fueled by, and just lately I've been finding that unhelpful, both in terms of the relative staying power of that energy and the influence it has on my acting choices.

So. Buttons. Where to begin?

Well (to begin,), allow me to say that I believe I have gotten a little better about this whole "anxiety thing." Folks what knew me back in the day (which was a Wednesday; I don't know if you knew that) can tell you, I used to freak out about and be afraid on some level of just about everything. Even things that really had little-to-nothing to do with me personally. Somehow, I found value in taking responsibility for every little thing I could, and I think it had something to do with the idea that I needed to earn love, or something similarly packed with pathos (the bad kind). I'm not saying I've worked that out entirely, but I'm much better now at identifying what is truly my problem, what's my sympathy, and I don't freak out about telephone calls or public places. As often. >wink!<

The issue for me now-a-days has more to do with functioning without anxiety; that is, dropping some anxiety without becoming a total ne'er-do-well. I am addressing this challenge both in terms of life and in terms of acting. I mean, damn, but the way I used to get things done in rehearsal was to rev up the old engine and let it fly, see where it took me. Now, however, things have changed. The acting engine doesn't seem to want to run now unless it's getting proper fuel and recipricol kinetic energy. (Distended metaphor engine: apparently 100%.) That is to say, whereas before my anxious energy translated easily into big, sometimes bad but always boisterous, acting choices, now nothing dramatic happens unless I'm making the right choices and doing so with a scene partner who is right there with me.

In some senses, this makes me a "better" actor. In fact, I would wager that most laymen would analyze this as an obvious improvement, based on the standard that fewer right answers are always better than a multitude of wrong ones. That's not exactly an actor's job, though. In fact, as I have come to understand it, using too much discernment in the moment actually impedes an actor's process, turns him or her into a simultaneous experimentor and critic who constantly self-nullifies. What most people need from an actor is for him or her to come into a rehearsal room and screw up big time, left, right and center, to find the occasional just-right gem of a choice.

It really is a question of fuel. Once, it was sufficient to face the stage (and life) with a heaping helping of anxiety to fuel my ride. It got things done, and it seemed endless in supply. Well, I suppose anything that seems unlikely to change is a thing that will surprise you. That's part of the pleasure of acting, I must admit. It's fascinating work because not only does it never sit still, but one's instruments never do, either. It's like trying to perform surgery on a patient who is engaged in aerobics, and with anthropomorphic tools animated by Disney. (Distended metaphor engine: definitely 100%.) That is to say, the craft of acting sometimes seems to boil down to staying flexible enough to keep up with changes. After all, the only constant in life is change.

And change makes me anxious. >

wink

!<