Useless Beauty (All This)

Great song. I'm not a huge Elvis Costello fan, but every so often one of his songs hits it out of the park for me, and

this

would be one of those. Friend Heather, who is a much better devotee of Costello, introduced me to it. I'm not sure if I've ever discussed this here, but songs rarely resonate for me based on their lyrics. This is a thing that drives some people (such as Wife Megan) a little crazy, but I can't really help it. Or, I don't want to. I like being better attuned to the song than I am to the lyrics. I don't have a whole lot of clear, intuitive behavior that doesn't get second-guessed by my intellect (such as it is) -- I'm keeping this one. This is all just to say that words to this song are brilliant, but it's the feeling of the chorus that carries me away.

Last night I saw

the Alvin Ailey dance company

for the second time in my life, and they were just as affective as I remembered. Poke around the site a bit and you'll soon see that the company members are gorgeous, and I assure you that without seeing them move, you don't know the half of it. Their work is passionate and specific, and it is a real treat to spend time experiencing their artistry. The first time I saw them was some five or six years ago, and I didn't know what I was in for then, so was doubly appreciative. I wondered if the blush of first impression would have faded a bit for me this time around. It didn't.

Of course, their beauty -- physical and kinesthetic -- is far from useless. Even if one were to be stupid enough to see dance as a generally useless expression, Ailey's work and the work he's inspired since wouldn't be lacking in usefulness. It always expresses something about a specific culture or movement that we couldn't quite learn in any other medium. Watching last night though, immersed in all that keen beauty, I got to thinking about the supposed virtue of beauty. Or rather I should call it the

disputed

virtue, since beauty as either cause or effect in "good" art has been a hotly debated aspect of art since time-just-about-immemorial. I think about it quite a lot myself, in the context of an actor who can't help but notice that some very pretty, very untalented folks get rather far rather fast. But last night, engulfed by it, I started thinking in less jaded terms about the role of beauty in artistic expression.

A girl I knew in college and I were taking a walk in our fairly new home of Richmond, Virginia. I remember passing an old, decrepid brick building, with exposed and broken pipes and a fire escape, all various shades of red and rust. I wondered aloud what it was that was drawing me to ugliness lately. My friend replied, "What makes you think that's ugly?" And she was right -- it was beautiful. Thinking of that run-down building as ugly was a preconceived judgment on my part, based on ideas about good and evil as they apply to structure, society, prosperity, etc. It's an easy mistake, as beauty/ugliness is in itself about as subjective a concept as I can imagine. It has as much to do with an emotional response as with anything else, and emotions are not binary. I suppose part of what impresses me about Ailey's work is that I'm immediately confronted with stupidly beautiful people, and then that experience of beauty is surpassed in strides (literally) by the beauty of some particular movement or shape they create.

Of course, I'm sure there are some who will disagree.

Actually, the subjective nature of beauty and ugliness (and all gradients thereof) gives me some hope for capital-T Truth playing a significant role in our work. One of the most famous (read: most cliched) quotes about Beauty and Truth having a relationship come from poor, too-soon-departed Keats:

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

It's one of those that I can go on considering in different lights throughout my life, I think. (That has proven true thus far, anyway.) You've got to love that the essence of the argument is the only bit in quotes; the idea that it is all we (or it [the urn]) know, and all we (or it [you know: the urn]) need to know, is all Keats. In other words, it's up to us whether we know it or need to know it, but history itself tells us that that Beauty = Truth, and vice versa.

Why am I going on about a (beautiful) poem? Because it forms the basis of a relationship between Beauty and Truth that is key to my assertion. That is, the commonality between perceptions of beauty is founded on a more shared, communal sense of Truth. In other words, given just how incredibly individual is everyone's opinion about what is ugly and what is beautiful, it makes sense to me that there must be a contributing factor to all those disparate opinions that allows them to find common ground in some cases -- that common factor being Truth. In my humble opinion. Capital-T Truth, mind you, which has less to do with empirical facts and more to do with feeling, with instinct. I think an innate sense of this Truth is that in which we're all participating when we come to an mutual appreciation of Beauty.

Certainly one can have beauty without Truth (one can have it, thanks to advertising and such, any time one wants it); hence my capital-B Beauty. Otherwise known as Glory, Spirit, Love, etc. I wouldn't have called seeing Alvin Ailey a religious experience per se but, then again, it did rather feel like going to church ought. There were times I felt lost, others when I felt as though we were going through the motions a bit, then suddenly a time without a sense of time, when I felt lifted out of myself and part of a whole I had barely felt myself in just moments prior. Then it would end, as all things must I suppose, and seem just as brief as it had infinite when it was happening. It's difficult to define or even describe a unifying experience, even though all of us have at some time or another felt it, probably because most of our intellect comes of division, of making distinctions. So you have to live the moments of unity. And should we creators and makers and artists try to make Beautiful work?

Yes.

Memory Play

They're very interesting to me, memory plays. Memory-anything, really, but particularly memory plays, because plays are live and immediate and ever-changing stories. Some of my favorite and most formative theatrical experiences have been in some fashion memory plays, from

The Glass Menagerie

to

Franny's Way

to

As Far As We Know

. What I love about them most, I think, is the added layer of perception and perspective. They can be almost like meta-theatre in their effect, yet without a lot of self-conscious devices. As an audience we get to through layers of distance to empathy and recognition, and as players we get to ask really interesting questions: how true is this rendition, who's influencing the story, how much is this to be played as a unified series of events, and how much as after-the-fact fantasy? Finally, memories are stories we all have within us at every moment of our lives. It is fascinating to be invited into someone else's, real or imagined.

I'm almost done with my series of short plays inspired by reading

Mary Roach

's book,

Stiff

(thanks, Nat). That is to say, I've almost finished writing a first draft of the whole sequence, as I see it now. It's been a big project, luckily entered into blindly and without expectation, so nearing a complete first draft is at once an accomplishment and a very small step in what ought to be a much longer process, if I really expect this writing to be produced sometime, somewhere. As I see it now, I've one-and-a-half scenes to write and I'll be ready to have that most cringe-worthy experience of early drafts: a first reading. These happen to be the last two scenes, and I'm not certain which will be actually last yet, but I am (maybe) halfway through the one that's actually only a monologue. And, wouldn't you know it? It's a memory play.

Memory monologue? That just sounds stupid, and enforces the idea that a stand-alone monologue has no place in a larger play. So: Memory play.

It's difficult. If I'm doing it right, it is more of a play than a monologue. It should have a little drive behind it, a little "umph" of conflict and action and, above all, it should change something. It's strange how it's all coming out. I've essentially set myself up a challenge: How would someone who lived to a ripe old age tell her life story if she didn't have all the time in the world in which to do it? I've made no preconceived decision about this (at least, not a conscious one). Instead I'm writing as ideas come to me, and trying to keep some feeling of urgency behind it, in conflict with the way in which pausing allows memories to flow better, and holding still allows us to appreciate those memories more. I'm not altogether sure it's working, and I suspect I won't know at all how it's worked until someone -- poor soul -- tries to perform it for me. As a writer, I'm also hampered a bit by knowing where I want to end up with this one. The idea for the end is what started me writing it. Knowing something like that is good for direction but, personally speaking, bad for writing motivation. I'm propelled by exploration, as my rambling 'blog entries must attest, which is what makes revision processes so difficult for me.

I have an ever-changing relationship with memory. Generally speaking, as a kid I took it for granted, as a teenager into young adult I wallowed about in it, as a young man I rather spurned it, and as an adult (or so I'm told I am) I value it in any way I can get it. All of that just adds up to a high value that I place on my stories, good, bad or (rarely) indifferent. Memory is tricky. I'm thinking a lot about the expression, "If memory serves...". Did this saying come about because we see memory as serving us, or because we recognized that memory is an unreliable thing, bound not to serve us? Or was it rather because we're more at the mercy of our memories than they of us? That's the way it seems to me, most of the time. Will I remember Wife Megan's recent warning about the weather forecast? Not a chance. Will I suddenly recall an episode from ten years past so vividly that I feel ashamed most of the day? Highly probable, at any given moment. Ah sentience! What a trade-off!

Finally -- in every sense of the word -- memory is all we are. What we've experienced is who we end up, one way or another, and when we're gone, what really survives past our ashes here but memories of us? So perhaps being lightly in love with memory as a general concept isn't all that strange. Maybe memories are brushes with something far-reaching and universal. They can certainly affect us, albeit some more than others.

And if I write "memories" one more time, will

that damn song

get stuck in your head too? Oh good . . .

Creative Types

We can be pretty irritating, I know, and in an amazing variety of ways. We drive each other crazy, too, believe me. In fact, sometimes it seems like the central preoccupation in any

creative type

's life is trying to follow his or her process in outright defiance of any outside input whatsoever. This makes collaboration between two such types an often highly entertaining prospect . . . from the outside, at least. On the inside, there may be some hair-pulling, self-inflicted or otherwise, some eye-gouging, all standard operating procedure for we

creative types

. It can even seem quite subconscious, this uncooperative behavior. We're engaged in an intuitive challenge, and it piques our psychological quirks because our instincts are all we really have to back up our decisions. That's as it should be with pure creativity -- nothing is quite so original as a given individual -- but of course it sometimes leaves no room for the little things generally considered helpful to collaboration, like procedure, logic and human kindness. In fact, more often than not it feels as though the only thing that keeps collaborative artists from decapitating one another is the fact that they are, theoretically, united in pursuit of a common goal.

Yet it's something one develops a real taste for -- the creative, collaborative energy. It can feed itself and really take one to unexpected places; plus there's a momentum to it that is very motivating, very energizing. It feels good to "accept and build." So good, in fact, that when you achieve that dynamic you can find yourself wondering why everything else can't be like this. Doing my taxes should feel like this! I believe all challenges, even the most mundane and least challenging, have the potential to be approached in that spirit. I really do. But it's difficult. And fleeting. Because there's no escaping the fact that people change, and people are what it's all about, really. There's something special about being able to share and nurture that spirit, whether it's arrived at through hard work or instant chemistry and rapport. I suppose if it were easy or common, it wouldn't feel quite as rewarding.

I got a good dose of that feeling from

Friend Nat

last night over dinner. I feel like he kind of lives in that world in one sense or another 'round the clock. Aptly enough, Nat's the one who coined the tag "creactor" on this here 'blog (see the

reactions

on

2/28/07

). He's very adept at taking something you give, even conversationally, acknowledging it and building upon it. That is to say, don't get into a competition with him that's at all about chasing the topper on a joke. You. Will. Fail. But then again,

do

get into it, if you have the opportunity. Because Nat seems to live by the tenets of good improvisation, such that even when he bests you it will be whilst agreeing with you, making you look good and helping to build on whatever came before. It's fun! I've got to figure out how he does that so consistently . . .

Also, I've got to dislodge my puckered mouth from his skinny butt. }smack!{

I don't see Nat nearly often enough, what with all the theatre'n' and the'rest'n' we're both up to. This particular encounter was owed largely to the fact that I'm presently on a brief theatre'n' hiatus until

The Big Show

gets mounted. (Er: opens. Er: goes up[dang it!]?) Even when we were last in a show together, we didn't get a lot of social time in. It's just the nature of the beast, it would seem. So when we meet, we have a lot to catch up on in all areas. We also, however, inevitably spend a lot of time talking about our work. It's what we both love, after all. In fact, it's just a little bit like dating the same willful woman, if said woman was in all places at all times and simultaneously dating half the population of Manhattan. But I digress. We talk about what we've just done, what we're working on, what's coming up and what we'd like to do in the future. Nat's got

a play of his writing being produced

at Manhattan Theatre Source come January, par example, right around the time I'll be getting good and ready to don

Romeo

's tights. (Oh shoot: tights. I didn't think of that possibility until this very moment...) He's suddenly busy right now, as a matter of fact. We just got lucky [dang it!].

Nat and I met whilst working on a whacky sort of show that was rather in development. We ended up performing all kinds of tasks in connection with the show that actors don't normally get the opportunity to undertake, such as revising dialogue, choreographing fight sequences and leaping from bookshelves. It was a little more than harrowing at the time, for me, because I tend toward anxiety (what? really?) and worry about the outcome when so much is uncertain. But it was great, too, and I'm still proud of stuff with which we came up.

Zuppa del Giorno

, at its best, works with that kind of chemistry, and with the urgency of enthusiasm more than of necessity. I can't quite imagine how much time I've spent creating something from "nothing" over my adult life, but the cumulative hours are probably a big number, and still there are no guarantees. One is never completely relaxed into the process; which is probably to the process's benefit. So it's good to be working with people you just grok. I've known this in some sense from a very young age but, as with everything else, it's one thing to intuit a lesson as a youth and another altogether to really learn and practice the same lesson as an adult. Learning (and practice) is like Jell-O(TM): There's always rooms for it.

Ooo. I should end on that sliver of sagacity right there. Copyright (c) Jeffrey Wills, 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Some people have wondered why I have maintained Odin's Aviary as I have. Friend Mark asked me back in the day how I can commit the time, and Sister Virginia put a similar thought somewhat more bluntly. I admit, it's easier at some times than others. I would love to do an entry every day. I'd also love to have a huge audience and be responsible for inspiring a horde of like-minded people. I could probably change things on the 'blog to make these things happen, the first of which would be to shorten my entries dramatically. One paragraph a day, that kind of thing. Lots of posts about funny and weird and cool and rather arbitrary things. I wouldn't consider that a compromise of my integrity, or something ridiculous like that. Look at my shared items -- that's the kind of thing I subscribe to. No, I keep up this style of 'blogitude for far more selfish reasons. It's collaborating with myself. It's a little time (okay: a lot of time) committed to accepting and building on my own ideas and philosophy. That's why I spend a page or two, building on a thought when I'm more productive, wandering and exploring when I'm less so. It's practicing and learning, and anyone who gets something out of that by reading it is, to my mind, a huge bonus to that process. That's when being a

creative type

feels like a most worthwhile endeavor.

The Taoists are fond of pointing out that there is a difference between the knowledge of good, and the practice of good. This, then, is my practice.

North Pocono High: Day 2

Remember when I posted about the infamous "sophomore slump" that inevitably occurs with a second night's performance? (See

8/15/07

.) Of course you do! Well: It's more of a guideline than a rule, actually. Today we had a great day of teaching, in our every class. It would be foolish to try and attribute the success to any one general factor. Suffice it to say that whatever else may have contributed, we knew better what we were about today, and so did the rest of the school, and that seemed to grease the wheels just enough to allow everyone to relax and enjoy more.

In Shakespeare we latched on to the improvisation tenet, "When you get stuck, do something physical." Using it as a kind of theme for the day's (read: 43 minutes') work, we warmed them up quickly, played a quick game, and then ran them through three variations on developing strong physical characterization. Typically, we spend at least three workshops of 2-3 hours each on this part, but we wanted to at least point out the tools for them to return to if they are so motivated in future work. We had them walk the room on a grid, taking away the burden of decision-making a bit, then guided them into different postures using body-center specifics, animal forms and appetites to help them discover interesting shapes, pacing and rhythm. They took to it beautifully. My only regret was that we ran right up against the bell, leaving no time to review and process in stillness. We had also hoped to review their texts with them for physical cues and clues to their characters today. We've decided to attack some vocal work (in the large auditorium) tomorrow, and then integrate both days' work into the text Thursday, instead.

Physical Education was much the same for our first period as it had been yesterday, and today was another day for taking our time to lay a groundwork of physical awareness. Neither period had the immense numbers of Monday's third-period class. In the second period, however, we had our first freshman/sophomore group. They did very well indeed. In fact, it was easier to hold their attentions, by and large. It's clear to me that when we see them again on Friday, we'll need to take it slow, make sure everyone is both supported and challenged. Tomorrow is our big challenge in P.E., however, as we'll only see those two classes the one day. With period three today, we demonstrated some of our acrobalance to give them an idea of what we were training them for. It was well-received, and I think we'll start both classes with that tomorrow. And maybe, just maybe, we'll get to partner-stretching sooner so we can go farther with it and offer them some of the insight the classes who have us twice this week will receive.

Finally, the acting class. We had a much better day today. Our strategy for incorporating more game play certainly helped, but I think also the students had simply come to trust us a bit better over the twenty-four hours between. We began with a very quick warm-up, then played "Grandma's Footsteps" (otherwise known as "Red Light/Green Light"). That got them alert, and we brought them in for group counting up, wherein one person counts one number at a time, listening for their turn, trying to get up to a certain number. This was a nice way of reincorporating them as a team while maintaining a sense of play. From there we moved into some of our standard exercises for learning about rhythm, comic threes and stops, or doing one thing at a time. Still in a circle, we did spit-takes, trying to find a distinct beat in each moment (drink - process - spit) and then a rhythm as we continued around the circle. After that, we did the dollar-bill exercise, wherein the students are asked to cross the room on their way to somewhere, discover a dollar bill on the ground, and make off with it. We spent some time on this, and they accepted adjustments very well I thought, neither fighting them nor cowering from repetition. We ended working on staged trips, and trying to make them spontaneous and an event. They did very well and seemed to enjoy the technique work. Tomorrow we see about working that into the improvisation groundwork.

I'm exhausted and, frankly, expect to be every evening this week. We're having some callbacks for background players for

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet

tonight from 7:00 to 10:00., for which I need to be both acute and participatory. I'ma go nap now . . .

"This is me breathing . . . "

says John Cusack's character, Martin Blank, as he prepares for his ten-year high school reunion by almost unconsciously loading a clip into his handgun and checking the chamber. I love

Grosse Point Blank

. It's an incredibly irresponsible movie with nothing but reverence for a by-gone era, some violence, and a whole lot of cynically glib dialogue. Love it, love it, love it. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm constantly searching for open calls for the casting of

GPBII: Son of Blank

. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Movie quotes play through my head with about the same frequency as songs do, so there's nothing unusual about having one take up residence there for a little while, and the more I enjoy a movie, the more I've seen it, and there you go. Still, I try to take notice when one seems particularly stubborn about hanging onto my hippocampus, and this is one that has done just that. I'm not saying that a quote is recalled just for the purpose of trying to communicate something to myself. Rather, I think that when I do recall a quote, or snatch of song, some part of brain is working tirelessly away on some worry or other and recognizes the meaning. The old gray matter can be like a room full of people, and one of them can recognize something in another and say, "Oh man, don't leave yet. So-and-so's just

got

to meet you." And so, on the three-hundredth and sixty-second internal repetition, a connection is made.

This is me breathing . . .

I'm a nail-biter. I don't mean that as a colorful expression of my anxious personality. Rather, I am literally a nail-biter. I try to be better about it. I generally fail. It's called chronic onychophagia, by the way, and only about 10% of men past the age of 30 engage in it. It's a rather complicated little symptom/condition. Lots of theories surround it. It's often coupled with other supposed compulsive behaviors, such as hair removal, skin removal, excessive washing, etc., and so often associated with obsessive/compulsive disorders. But it can also be diagnosed as a simple ingrained behavioral response, or an addiction, or as a kind of sublimated grooming instinct. I don't know quite what to make of it, except to say that I do it when I'm bored and when I'm anxious, occasionally without conscious thought, and that I find it enormously gratifying for some reason. I'd also like to stop.

This is me breathing . . .

I have many habits. I have a lot of trouble distinguishing between my habits and possible compulsive behaviors. I'm just not sure where one draws the line. My chronic onychophagia (it's just a fun way to say it) is probably the most physically destructive h/pcb I currently engage in, though my sincere and abiding love of good beer is obviously not a huge benefit to my person. I've had worser ones in the past -- such as smoking -- but really, most of these behaviors are a little more mental than demonstrative. They may occasionally creep out in behavior, like finger-tapping or object-arranging, but as I've matured (ahem: grown older at least in terms of years) these demonstrations have lessened, either by will or accident. Because the h/pcbs can be so inexplicably internal, I often wonder just how unique they are, how many others experience them in the ways I do? I know I'm not alone. I know that. But is it maybe everyone, in their own ways? Is there a norm after all?

This is me breathing . . .

They sometimes say (They being rather fond of sweeping generalizations) that life happens in cycles, and not just the easily observable variety, such as birth-life-death, or spring-summer-fall-winter. Coincidence, in the purest meaning of the word, occurs over and over again. When a celebrity dies, we await the next two to follow. Read a book about little people and, though you'd swear it's never happened before, you'll notice nearly a dozen just going about your day. The cause-and-effect is difficult to track here, though plenty of people will chalk it up to simple mental association. The brain does have a habit of seeking out patterns, rhythms and symmetries. Yet I'm inclined to believe that the world outside our minds meets us halfway, more often than not. I'm not proposing anything particularly mystical here; linear logic simply doesn't explain everything. Take, for example, weddings. What is the explanation for my attending four weddings in the next four months, including my own, and the three others that friends of mine are attending during that same period? Incidences align, and it seems to me that attributing such alignments solely to human behavior is at best naive, at worst arrogant. It's just that we're a little obsessed with ourselves, and a little in love with answers. We're also a little in love with mystery, which I admit keeps me returning to a sense of wonder when I'm given the option.

This is me breathing . . .

I've been using

The Big Show

to help motivate me in recent efforts to curb my chronic onychophagia, which is in one sense apt, and in another, ironic. The last time I was particularly successful in ceasing the mania was during rehearsal for

The Glass Menagerie

, way back in 2002. I was playing a guy bent on self-improvement, who cared a lot about the impression he made on others, and it helped. Wherefore, then, ironic? Because one thing I have figured out about this behavior is that it is provoked by anxiety. When I got my first job, with a moving company, they told us that the two most stressful occasions in a person's life are a moving day and wedding day. Well, I'm here to tell you that the days leading up to said day are no piece of cake, neither. Planning a wedding is rife with reasons to return to old, comforting cycles, from the politics of negotiation to the inner-searching of a person preparing to make the change of his and/or her li(f/v)e/s. God bless. It's enough to make a fella' return to smoking.

This is me breathing . . .

Where experience and discovery meet, that's good acting. You want your performance to be informed by all you've seen and done, to be true to your understanding of the world, but also to embody the questions that live in a new, first-time moment. Acting in the theatre can satisfy both my compulsion for repetition and order, and my appetite for surprise and wonder. The ultimate balance between the two is an incredibly fragile thing: It only exists for half moments, most of the time, and most of the time such moments can't be savored, lest one risks destroying them. They must simply be, and then pass. As a younger actor, I became pretty obsessed with rehearsing a role to mechanical perfection, with making good choices and being able to reproduce them exactly. The majority of my adult craft has been a process of learning about the other side of that coin, about the incredible necessity for surprise and improvisation. Hell: You can't possibly see enough possibilities to be effective without inviting forces of chance to have their say. We're at the mercy of chance -- from found money to global financial market crises -- every moment of every day, so it is in some ways natural to value ritual, to seek cycles.

This is me breathing . . .

We are not, however, our cycles. (Much as we may sometimes like to be.) We're not even our choices. (Although I imagine most of us would desperately insist that is exactly what we are.) No, we're something altogether else, a synthesis of choice and chance, a combination of forces creating . . . what, exactly? Well, us. I don't know how else to say it. With every inhale, and every exhale, forces are at work, within and without. It's a little frightening to think of things this way, but fear and excitement are a couple of those component forces. When I look at things this way, it seems apparent to me that my habits are in substance simply misdirected energy, force that could be applied to making more choices or, perhaps, appreciating more chances. Then again, maybe they're leading me toward their own chances and choices. The best one can do is to keep breathing, through whatever may come.