Return of the Lloyd

Friend Melissa contacted me recently about contributing to something she's putting together for Six Figures' Artists of Tomorrow (AOT) festival. Specifically, she asked if my silent-film clown, Lloyd Schlemiel, could be a part of it. I mulled it over for a bit before responding. It's pretty late notice (performing November 21 and 23), and I'm just dipping my toes back into the waters of performance after some time away. Add to that my last experience performing solo Lloyd, back in May, which can best be described as a learning sort of experience, and I felt justified in having some hesitation. I gave it a day, and when I came back to it today the thing I realized was that in spite of all the rational reasons not to take it on I wanted to take it on. So I am.

I don't know what I'll do yet, exactly, though I do know I want to book some time to work on Lloyd shtick in a rehearsal room, preferably with an outside eye lending me insight. Melissa told me right off that video projection was a possibility, so I have thoughts about utilizing some of my amateur video, if I can get it together in time. The first thing I did, though, was to write Melissa back, accept her offer and ask her a little about what she was looking for. It turns out she wants to theme her work around her most recent dance exhibition for Estrogenius, which is collectively entitled Blueprint. Though I've been reading her 'blog in reference to this work, I didn't see it, so I asked for a description. She writes:

"Blueprint was a wide open assignment -
just taking the word and riffing with a piece of some sort -"

Okey-dokey. In addition to this, I knew Melissa had utilized (a) large blue hat(s) and lipstick in her choreography. So there's that. Lloyd most frequently has used a large, round orange hat in his act, so that's a funny coincidence/contradiction/complement. Finally, though, Melissa writes what I find to be interesting observations about my noseless clown:

"I think anything Lloyd is a blueprint piece - he is so curious and exploratory that he is always wondering what something is made of and his relationship to it - which in my mind is also wondering what he is made of -"

This would make the second time that my clown has been described as a guy who needs to figure things out, though it's difficult to remember whether or not Mel and I have talked about the similar observation that Mark McKenna made. I find her observation, either way, quite accurate and insightful. I never looked at it before as Lloyd trying to figure himself out through his relationship with objects. (Lloyd is of course, me, and I hope you'll understand the ease of referring to him in the third person) It's a fascinating angle from which to approach new work with him. Not literally, of course. The first decision I would have to make in a rehearsal room would be whether he is even aware of that kind of introspection. At present, I'm inclined to say it is all subconscious. That seems funnier in concept, but until I play around with the idea, who knows?

It would be nice if this performance could advance my other work with Lloyd in its process, specifically my interests in making a silent film or two. I have a collection of amateur clown-ish shorts -- raw footage, really -- that is all haphazard and unedited and generally useless at the moment. This could be an interesting opportunity to get it organized, at least, and maybe use something of it for the performance. I've seen and done a lot of work under the auspices of the AOT festival, the last being As Far As We Know, way back when it was still called The Torture Project. During that time, Six Figures was using the high domed ceiling of the converted nave space for its projections, and if the same is true this time around it could create some very interesting moments of focal shift. In addition, exploring my clown from the point of view of his own introspection (or lack thereof) is a cool way to begin my experimentation of playing Romeo in a clown style.

Whatever happens, I'm certainly destined to be pretty busy for the next couple of weeks.

Comedy & Tragedy & Everything In Between

Because why be specific? Specificity isn't all that important, is it?

I'm involved in two very brief, very different rehearsal processes this week, both of which had their first rehearsals yesterday. Some people spend their Sundays unwinding, doing a crossword or sipping coffee and loading up on carbohydrates. Me, I have two rehearsals. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel great. In spite of

how busy I've been

with acting gigs this fall -- in counter-spite of my supposed priority to remain decidedly non-busy leading up to

The Big Show

-- I have missed being in rehearsal. It's good to get back to it, albeit on a Sunday and doing double duty. In fact, this entry title was very nearly appended with "& Commercial Work," but at the last minute

ADM Productions

decided they didn't need me after all. I'm choosing to perceive that as "maintaining my theatrical integrity" this week, rather than "losing paying work."

My first rehearsal Sunday was for a follow-up staged reading of

Tom Rowan

's play,

Burning Leaves

. You may remember my writing about

Burning Leaves

back in July

, when

the initial staged reading

was performed. This reading around, the script has been trimmed and we're under the guidance of director

Gaye Taylor Upchurch

. It's being performed on two separate days under the auspices of The Ensemble Studio Theatre's

Octoberfest

, despite protestations from naysayers that October is, in fact, past. I find this personally fitting; I missed out on doing any performances in the actual October.

This rehearsal started out strangely for yours truly. I was a little late, in part because I was hefting a surprisingly heavy Mac CPU for later deposit at the technology recycling fair down at Union Square that day. Why then? Why lug this to rehearsal? Well, it's been sitting,

2001

-like, in a corner literally for months as recycling events, er, cycled past. Plus, it didn't seem that heavy at first. So it was with aching arms and a strong desire not to have to explain myself that I arrived to discover that I was the only member of the previous cast who would be in attendance. This has happened to me before. It's an interesting position in which to be. It means that either A) you were the only one who nailed it last time, or B) you were the only one who was desperate enough for work to perform in another unpaid reading. Or some combination thereof. Either way, I was surprised. I really enjoyed the last group that I read with, and it probably held me back in rehearsal having certain expectations for character interpretations. The director, "GT," seems to have a great approach though, and I'll shake off my stale expectations much better at the next rehearsal. She reminded us at the end of rehearsal that the text was very detailed and expressive of emotion, and so that it made sense to act

on

the lines and not take too much time with unspoken beats. A very smart initial critique.

I got the Mac to Union, where they collected my zip code and asked if I'd like to be interviewed for Comedy Central. But I was going to be late for the next rehearsal, and shuddered to think what Comedy Central might have been filming for. Alas: I'm sure I missed a golden opportunity for my career...

Bond Street Theatre

rehearses out of the loft apartment of its managing and artistic directors, Michael McGuigan and Joanna Sherman. It's on Bond Street, aptly enough, which is not too far south of Union Square, and I paused on my way there just long enough to purchase a sandwich and coffee. I'll be performing with them both on Saturday for a

benefit in Brooklyn

, and this pleases me greatly. I had to turn down an offer to work with Bond Street at the start of summer (conflicts with Italy, a desperate need to hang on to my day job, etc.), and such a situation can often lead to a write-off of the actor. Fortunately for me, Joanna and Michael share a lot of the same interests I do, and my skills are valuable to the kind of theatre they generally produce. Plus they're just neat-o in general. So after a really great thirty-minutes-or-so of conversation about ensemble theatres and collaboration, we got down to work on our short presentation for the benefit: an adaptation of Monty Python's famous

Argument

sketch

. Bond Street works in Afghanistan and with artists from there, and as you might imagine has been experiencing a lot of frustration in obtaining cultural visas for their collaborators to visit and perform in the US. They've channeled this frustration into the adaptation, tweaking this hilarious send-up of bureaucracy ever-so-slightly.

It's difficult to perform the sketch without lapsing into UK dialects, but it's also a good struggle that reminds me to own the language in my way, rather than merely copying

Michael Palin's famous performance

. Michael (McGuigan) has also added a bit of

Abbott and Costello

into the mix, as though the verbal specificity weren't heightened enough. It was slow-going at first, but that's just as well when it comes to that kind of vaudeville-esque wordplay. Little, mundane decisions take up time at the start, but if you don't resolve them first you end up with much bigger questions about solving issues with pacing and the like later on. So we warmed up slowly to the text, and after a couple of hours had begun to find some rhythm and make discoveries about how to adapt the humor to the stage. It's a pity in a way, because this kind of sketch really deserves hours of continuous rehearsal to get it crackling, but we all at least have enough shared vocabulary in our work to make a few more leaps in the process than others might. I'm looking forward to the performance of it even now, and wonder what our second and final rehearsal will produce to add to it.

I staggered home happy, but incapable of making basic decisions, such as what to make for dinner. It was a fairly long run of rehearsal and improperly handled H2O/sugar intake, and gave me pause about being an actor full-time. It was a very brief pause, however. I should be so lucky to be so exhausted at the end of every day.

The Big Show

. . . My goodness. Has it been over a week? Yes; yes, it has. It feels almost strange to be writing here again, which just goes to show me that it's not so much how long one spends away from a project that disrupts its cycle, as how drastically one breaks its frequency and rhythm. Writing feels strange, but the thinking has been going on, full-fired pistons, the entire time. The past few days, in fact, have been spent trying to figure out with what exactly this here entry would concern itself. I mean, I had a title (titles are easy, I always have a title), and I knew the general content, but I couldn't find the words to express myself. I was searching for a format, a focus, a shtick . . . and therein lay my block, I think. Some things defy structure; some experiences are unique, if only for one or two of the people involved.

The Big Show did what it was supposed to do, what they've been doing for centuries of human history. You have months and months (and, in some cases, still more months) of build up to this single event, during which time everyone is saying to you in one way or another, "This is a big deal, and your life will not be the same." Okay, you think, but I've been around a few places and seen a few things and really this is just a public acknowledgement of something I've been working on for years. So what surprises can it really hold? I ought to have remembered that even Regular-Sized Shows have the potential to be life-altering experiences, sans pomp, circumstance and hors d'oeuvres. They generally accomplish this by catching you off or coaxing you out of your guard, then hitting you right in your gooey human center.

My personal gooey human center is a ganache of gratitude (yes, I know Heather -- not a filling), and from way back in the process of planning The Big Show, I have been set up for a gratitudinous (is SO a word) fall. My friends flocked to help me and, guys, if you're listening: You're a bunch of total jerks. Don't even try to pretend that the motivation behind your combined support and myriad selfless contributions was well intentioned. It is transparently clear that you rocked my socks off for the express and specific purpose of making me cry and, furthermore, feel like weeping cathartically every time I think of any one of you. What else can I say to you than: Mission accomplished. In spades. You bunch of total jerk-faces.

I can't even bring myself to single persons out for the amazing contributions each of them made. It would belittle it, in a way, because my experience was bigger than can be expressed with my usual pithy, long-winded syntax, even if I used extra-distended vocabulary choices. I've been searching for these last days for some poem to post that will encapsulate it for me. I was swept away. I was not steering the wheel (in spite of multiple U-turns executed in the interests of not accidentally driving my groomsmen to West Virginia). I was completely subject to the experience. It was comparable to a drunkenness, but with intention and clarity. In fact, at times I felt I was drunk on the clarity of each moment -- each lively, open and honest moment. I look back and worry a little that I neglected people in the rush of my experience. Relatives I see once in a blue moon were there, and I said all of ten words to them, and I definitely felt gypped on time spent with friends who travelled from afar to be a part of my wedding. Yet I think of the surprise party thrown by everyone at the day job I've held for nine months, I think of seeing my New York friends against the autumnal Virginia scene, I think of turning around and seeing my best friends from age five on all there at my back . . .

You BUNCH of TOTAL JERKS!

Brecht thought the best work a piece of theatre could accomplish was to present arguments and hold the audience enough at bay that afterward they'd be able to discuss the arguments somewhat objectively. Fighting the complacency that profound catharsis encourages, he wanted theatre to educate. Epic theatre may not necessarily alienate the audience throughout the play; in fact, I find it most effective when it draws us in emotionally at moments, then reminds us that it is a play, and that we have a life separate from it. This preference is part of why I don't actively pursue epic theatre work, but what affinity I have for Brecht is evident in my affection for direct-address of the audience. I like to learn from experiences, to experience the kind of intellectual catharsis that comes of new ideas instead of unexpected or inevitable emotions. Can I be objective at all about my experience of being wed?

One of my favorite pieces of advice leading up to La Grande Mostra was this: Be sure to be there. Practically speaking, very helpful. Also helpful as a reminder that it can be easy in profound moments to feel both outside oneself and caught up in the current, said feelings being possible concurrently, consecutively or all of the above, all at once. So I took that advice to heart, and tried to allow myself moments of observation and moments of sheer, unthinking response. This at times meant wandering around my own reception, perhaps being less receptive to people than they expected, the which I hope they can forgive me. Weddings are supposed to make you feel something, and just maybe they're supposed to make the participants feel something overwhelming, something profound to think (feel) back on when in times of doubt or struggle. Are they also good for learning something? Are there lessons to be had about life in general, and oneself in particular? I believe so. I believe this is the hidden agenda of weddings. Most major rituals and rites of passage involve wrapping something quietly necessary inside of something showy and big.

In the life-in-general category, I'd say the big lesson for me had something to do with learning that some of life's most exciting, dangerous and rewarding adventures can be found in its most widely accepted and "mundane" aspects. The trick is in taking absolutely nothing for granted. Nothing. Easier said than done, I recognize, but then again, why should a wedding lend us a sense of appreciation and not, say, a regular phone call to someone we barely know? Or eating a hot dog (delicious hot dog...) as opposed to wedding cake? So many people have shared with us personal insights that they had as a direct result of experiencing our wedding. I believe such insights are there for us all the time, and that events such as weddings and shows and concerts, etc., serve not as the only conduits to those insights, but rather as reminders that these insights are there to be had at every moment of every given day. I used to view marriage as settling down. What could be more exciting, dangerous and rewarding, than stepping into one's future with that kind of intention and appreciation?

Speaking of personal lessons, mine was simply huge. The hugest I've had since those that led me to propose marriage to Wife Megan. Part of that decision to propose was motivated by an insight I had about how each day needs to be lived as if it could be your last, though not as though it definitely is your last. It's a fine distinction, but once I felt the difference, I could see how important it was that Megan and I commence to weddin'. I could go on and on about the personal intricacies of this realization for me and its relationship to my psyche, but I'd rather not alienate the dozen remaining readers and, besides, I bring it up to emphasize how profound a lesson was mine on the actual day of marriage.

Last Saturday, and in the days since, I have felt such an emotion of gratitude for everyone in my life that it's like my heart is singing. I'm embarrassingly double-wrapping my jacket on the subway to try and mute it a little in consideration of my fellow passengers. I'm disrupting telephone lines with pure sonic vibration. It's ridiculous and self-perpetuating -- the feeling itself inspires more gratitude. I have not the hands I need to write all the deeply felt thank-you letters to everyone, including those we couldn't invite or who couldn't make it. I owe something to everyone, and all I have to give is myself. The lesson, I think, is to give as if each day could be my last. Marriage isn't forming a private partnership, but creating a synergy, a collaboration, in order to offer more to the family at large. I said in my fatally brief speech (I hate public speaking) at the end of the reception that everyone there was family to me now, and I meant it. The best I have and am is only a result of the people I have known and loved.

. . .

. . . Dang it! Again?! Really? Again with the weepiness?

You bunch of total jerks . . .

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.

"Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized..."

"Okay, 'butt-love'."

This is an exchange stolen from the script (such as it is) for

The Reduced Shakespeare Company

's first big hit,

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged]

, and I quote it here to make a point. Oh yes, I'm venturing into new territory today -- an actual point. Here it is:

Lotsa people already made fun of

Romeo & Juliet

.

I mean: LOTS. If you just search for "romeo and juliet parody" on these here internets, you get a lot of results, in a full range from amateur to well-produced and well-known. Still more people have made fun of, made light of, and made all-comic of Shakespeare's entire canon, so that if you stacked the pages up from everything you'd have LOTSA pages. Probably they'd reach the moon and back. Maybe. Perhaps. I've no idea, really.

So

Zuppa del Giorno

is hardly venturing into undiscovered territory with its upcoming "wholly original" production,

The Very Nearly Perfect Comedy of Romeo & Juliet

. Heck: Stack Shakespeare in there as someone who made light of the story. Although the play is pirated from other adaptations of a couple of (very specifically) similar commedia dell'arte scenarios, and the biggest change he made was to make a few of the characters somewhat noble, and the story heavily tragic, he also had his fun. To put it succinctly: Shakespeare crammed just about every genitalia joke in there that he possibly could. Hamlet's "country matters" and lap-talk is minuscule in comparison. If you're reading the play, and you

think

he just made a reference to a particular bit of the male anatomy, odds are that he did. Even Juliet gets a swing at bat, if you will. Which is funny in more ways than one. It begs the question of whether or not ol' Will felt that a significant part of the story he was telling was simply two kids who were eager to shed trou' and bump uglies (answer: he did). I declared a theme of Odin's Aviary to be fart jokes, but I was being politic. "Richard" jokes are much more fun. (And I'm not talking "the Third," here.)

So, in a way, we're not doing something terribly original. I swear (though not by the inconstant moon) though that I'm smitten with

David Zarko

's concept of the story. As he's expressed it to me,

TVNPCoR&J

will be about people who are trying very hard indeed to keep life a comedy. In this way, we're not making fun of the play, but of people -- surely a good base for pleasing, accessible comedy, Shakespeare or no. I like this idea, the conflict, and the potential I see for this interpretation to inform the progress of the story. It's both funny and tragic, and could help us tap into a certain unpredictability that might make for a fresh experience for our audiences. It won't be a parody, or farce, or anything so self-conscious; rather, it will be a story of a community with something in common, in spite of all their violent or erotic differences. It feels, at the risk of gross generalization, very Italian to me. There's some talk of making it about a troupe of actors telling the story, but I'm not so in love with that. I'd rather represent people really living through it, trying to make their lives comedies that end well for each. But, yet again, heck:

Nothin

g

about these shows we make stays the same from start to finish. Best not to get too attached to any one idea yet.

So I'll fantasize a bit. Just to get it out of my system, you understand.

"Things get out of hand." This sums up pretty nicely for me what I'm imagining as a central action of our play. Much of the action of the basic story reminds me of children at play (and I refer to every character here, except possibly the prince) who get a little out of control with their fussing and fighting. Before you know it, someone's heart's broken, someone's eye's poked out, and everyone's pointing fingers in order to avoid more hurt. This meshes well with clown theory as I understand it, because clowns are very much like babies, or alien visitors, experiencing everything for the first time. They still have to learn concepts like "hot," much less "love." As it stands, our version will have only Romeo and Juliet as clowns, and the rest of the world populated by masked commedia dell'arte characters. This stands to drive the action right along, as commedia characters are largely appetite-driven and selfish. It's exciting to think of our first -- in five+ years of making dell'arte-inspired theatre, mind you -- masked show in general. I hope we can help our audiences see the masks as they were intended; more caricature than disguise, more revealing than deceitful.

Regardless of style choices, it will I hope retain the sense of contemporary fun that has been in every Zuppa show through the years. In our workshops, as we explored the seeming despair over Rosaline that Romeo exhibits on his introduction, we thought of having him accidentally pulling out moves borrowed from Hamlet, dressed in black, contemplating a skull wearing a red nose. I'd love to have movie posters up for other Shakespeare plays, borrowing from

Silent Lives

the notion of characters who learn their behavior from popular culture. The humor should come from the moment and character, not necessarily the indications of a joke in the script. Heather and I are already discussing the possible humor of feigned (or frustrated) exits, a running joke about people trying to leave stage and continually being called back. The balcony scene is a great one for this and comes to mind immediately, but also on the way to the party Romeo keeps trying to leave. The topper is the "morning after" scene, probably. Great place for a fart joke there, too, I can't help but notice. (Hopefully someone will shoot me down on this; "that may be a great idea for

next

year's show...") "It is the lark that sings so out of tune..."

It's at once thrilling and frightening to be so excited for another Zuppa show. After some five years' experience creating these shows in a variety of ways, I've come to learn that they can be the ultimate positive experience, or can be somewhat like Mercutio's famous monologue. Full of enthusiasm and wit to begin, but suddenly arduous and painful, too. Even

Silent Lives

, my favorite thus far, was something of a baptism by fire. You just never know how it's all going to turn out, and stand to save yourself a lot of pain by caring a little less. But of course, the whole point is in getting people to care a little bit more, to invest themselves in good laughter, and good tears. So there is no choice; not really. Like a good tragedy, caring this much about what I make is an inevitable progress through Heaven and Hell. Besides, the laughter is so much sweeter with a little suffering to weight it against.

It may not be an original idea, but it is a true one.