Pascha

"--which there was no need to have told you, by the way. And I fancy that in telling you about my inner conflict I have laid it on rather thick to glorify myself."

-- Mitya, in Fyodor Dostoevski's The Brothers Karamazov

--

Heels up, flung headlong. Attempting a contemplative weekend instead of an active one, I've attended (so far) two Pascha services at Christ the Savior - Holy Spirit Orthodox Church. It has been, to say the very least, interesting and informative. You can learn a lot about any religion just by attending a service, and as several sources have told me, that's the only real way to become acquainted with Christian Orthodoxy.

I've been learning about Orthodoxy for years. Now, I'm trying to learn it, itself.

--

I told my mom as much. "Make sure," she told me over the phone, "that you're not doing this for your friends. Make sure you're doing it because you really feel it's the right thing for you."

That made me think. Sure, some friends of mine recently decided to join the Orthodox Church. Sure, one of my closest professors is Orthodox. But am I?

The word "Orthodox," of course, means "right worship" or "right belief." Aside from implications that this is the right way for a Christian to worship and believe, I still have to ask whether it's "right for me." Or maybe not right--but suitable? ideal? comfortable?

That's what worries me, that confusion of "feeling something is right" and merely "feeling comfortable."

And couldn't one argue that it has nothing to do with something being "right for you" or "right for me," anyway? That it ought to be something "right for God"?

--

Really, it's too early to tell, anyway. Two services on the most holy weekend in the year are not going to give me a very representative view. Still, now is better than later; as this time of year is cumulative for Orthodox, one could argue that this is the best time of year to observe their services--in the same way that many Protestants are on their best behavior at Christmas.

--

As a personal act of faith, and with vague intentions of "preparing" myself for an Eastern Easter, I fasted for all of Good Friday (or "Holy and Great Friday," as Orthodox call it) from use of all unnecessary electricity, all food and all drink besides water. It was hard.

My rationale was partially based on Orthodox practice--I read somewhere that there is a "strict fast" to mourn the physical death of Christ the Man--and something I heard on the radio about the Jewish Sabbath. A woman on the radio spoke about "trying not to have any affect on the world" for at least one day of the week. That's where the electricity thing came in. Keeping my phone off for 24 hours was a lot harder than I like to admit.

The eighteenth hour (6pm) of my fast was the most difficult. After I had seen the daylong fast through, I carbed up on two dinner rolls and some hummus. Too tired (a combo of actual crashing and a false sense of exhaustion) to do anything else, I slept for ten solid hours after.

--

For those interested in reading about Orthodox services, check out some books and these sites:

http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/
http://www.frederica.com/12-things/
http://www.christthesavioroca.org/about_orthodoxy.html

For those interested in Orthodoxy itself--if you're wondering, "Could I eventually become Orthodox?"--don't waste too much time reading about it. That was my mistake, admittedly. I read a lot about the beauty of the liturgy songs and the meditative experience and ancient theology, that got so caught up in "clouds" and anything earthly, anything less than a veritable cloud, seemed, well, lower than what it ought to be. Reading about it idealized the Church in my mind, and I found myself a tad disappointed (rather than fascinated) to see ordinary folks standing around me.

--

It wasn't until after Matins last night, after I'd made a quick run to the grocery store and read a bit from The Brothers K, that I realized what had happened in those services. As much as I was just trying to observe what was going on--when people crossed themselves, which icons were venerated and when, etc.--I had also stood and spent long hours in strict contemplation. After a few moments of self-consciousness, all consciousness of myself--my life's petty worries, my desires, my needs--disappeared.

As my professor put it, "The West says, 'Don't just stand there; do something.' The East says, 'Don't just do something; stand there.'"

I can't wait to see if it happens again tonight.

Keyed

"I'd stop this world
If I could find the key."


-- Steven Curtis Chapman, "The King of the Jungle"


--


Yesterday, a series of situations that brought about a Situation--not an Emergency. A parable (maybe), but too long of a story to relate here. I'll summarize the intro and only tell the best part:


It was a stressful morning, so I decided to go for a run in the afternoon. I lost my apartment keys, which I always keep in a pocket, somewhere along the route, and after retracing all my steps (walking about four miles), I found no key. I was locked out of my apartment, where I had left my car keys, cell phone, and wallet.


The first step was to call someone who could get me in touch with my landlord, who could get me in touch with the property manager, who lives next door. Because I looked ridiculous in my green Okoboji hoodie, Under Armour bottoms, and shorts, I decided to try for a phone at the local library, where everyone looks ridiculous. It's almost always filled with homeless folks and bizarre Kentuckians.


The reference librarian was skeptical but let me make a few calls, and once I'd gotten the numbers I needed and arranged for a co-worker to pick me up, I dicked around the library, read the first chapter of a random book, and then went to wait outside.


I realized once I was outside again that I hadn't stretched after my long run and longer walk, so among the thugs and bums that hang out by the door, I started stretching. It was awkward, and I felt stupid. At one point, two black kids on scooters came up to me and tried to read my hoodie.


"Ok-a-bah-jee?"


"It's Okoboji," I said, sighing. "It's a lake in Iowa."


--


I sat on the concrete steps and waited for my ride. And here might be the best part of the story:


I hadn't been sitting for more than a minute when I felt something hit the side of my head. I recoiled just in time to see a cigarette butt flying away from my face. Then I heard a woman's voice say, "Oh, honey, I'm sorry!" It was some fat white woman who had finished her smoke and flicked it away, seeing in the corner of her eye that it had hit someone. "It's okay," I said, and started laughing.


I had been hit in the head by a flying cigarette butt.


This story ends happily, with me getting a ride to my apartment, getting in touch with my landlady and property manager, getting spare keys (which I will get copied later today), and getting on with life.


And at 4:00pm, I finally had breakfast.


--


And now, the things I learned.


1.) From now on, whenever I run, I'm leaving my keys in my mailbox, under a mat, on the tire of my car, wherever. I'm never bringing my keys with me again.


2.) You don't realize how much trash there is on the sidewalk until you are looking for something on it. A lot of the trash is small, about the size and shape of a key. It's very hard to find something small like that when there's so much trash around. There's also a lot more trash as you get closer to the river, where the richer people live; not sure why that is, and maybe it has more to do with the number of people who walk through that part of town than with the amount of money people make there. But it's interesting.


3.) You also don't realize how easy it might be to break into your apartment until you are considering doing it yourself. Climbing an iron gate isn't that difficult, and scaling a fire-escape is conspicuous but doable. If raccoons can do it, chances are humans can, too.


4.) You're never in control of life. You only think you are, and you gather possessions and luxuries that give you a false sense of security. It's only when you're separated from things like keys, phones and money that you realize just how fine the line is between daily routine and a day of chaos and worry.


5.) Not freaking out in tough situations is underrated.


6.) No matter how badly your day has gone, just wait.


--


I thought a lot about those keys yesterday, and I can't resist thinking about them today. Where are they? Someone's lawn, waiting to be picked up by a toddler, waiting to be discovered by a lawnmower and mangled? A sewer, anonymous among decayed leaves? Wedged neatly in the crack of the sidewalk, unseen for years and years until the concrete buckles under a repairman's jackhammer?


And then I remember that it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter one bit.

Christian

"As we say, 'I never expected to be a saint, I only wanted to be a decent ordinary chap.' And we imagine when we say this that we are being humble.

But this is the fatal mistake. Of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us."

-- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

--

From Friday to Sunday, I was in Hillsdale.

Lots of talks about movies, literature, and memories. All of it worth more than the sum of its parts, truly, and I have to say I had a blast reconnecting with friends. Also spent plenty of time with former professors, some of them buying me food and some of them giving me mead (more on that later). Got to see The Rev. Dr. John Seth Reist, Jr., give his first service at the Presbyterian Church in Jonesville, MI, and I also had dinner with him (the night quickly regressed into a string of offensive jokes).

--

Something happens, to some extent, to everyone who visits their alma mater: You begin to suspect that you will not be making such visits for much longer. You are wearing out your welcome and the number of friends you have there is dwindling. You are not able to "keep up" with the college students any more, either in the number of drinks you consume or the hours you stay up. You realize that the thing you talk and joke about is the one most important thing that you have failed so far to look straight in the face: You are no longer in college.

The process is faster or slower for different people. For me, it took almost two years. I'm glad to have reached this point. In one sense, it places a hedge around my college years, sets them aside as something that is fun to remember but which I do not need to spend a lot of time and effort to reclaim. I can never go back, and at the same time, I can go back as often as I like. It restricts me from pretending I'm eighteen again, but it liberates me to act like I'm twenty-three. It forces me to stop trying to be "an old boy" and to be a young man. It is very easy to be inclined towards the former, and very difficult to attempt the latter.

--

All told, it was a good trip. Got to see the Tower Dancers Concert, all three performances, as well as a friend's senior art show. Both the concert and the art show were beautiful and impressive. I get the sense my former dance instructor, Corrine I., has grown as a choreographer because she is now working with students who have grown as dancers. She trusts them in a way she never could have trusted the group when I was there, probably because amateurs like me hindered her vision. The student-choreographed pieces, too, showed more confidence and clarity than I think were possible two years ago. Sometimes coy and feminine, sometimes sharp and reflective, all the dances radiated the goodness and happiness and energy that attracted me to the group when I was a student.

--

While in college, I experienced all the normal things people experience in college, and in that sense those four years were not unusual at all. But in terms of Who I was and What I did, I realize they were in fact very strange. Before Hillsdale, I was not the sort of person who would indulge in all appetites, or help a friend to be unfaithful to their fiancée, or think of going to church as if it were voluntary slavery,--all the while imagining that I was doing pretty well. But that's precisely the Who and What of college for me.

Removed from it now by two years of work, I see that I rejected Christianity. Even while I quoted C. S. Lewis in my freshman papers, argued theology with friends during lunch, and kept "Christian" as my Religious Views on Facebook, I was becoming a cold, proud, gluttonous wretch.

Dr. Jackson, who insists I call him by his first name from now on, suggested at lunch on Friday that perhaps one reason I fell away from my Christian upbringing is, Hillsdale Christianity isn't Christianity. It's apologetics. It's only an academic question to be debated by people who know a lot about the Bible but little about Christ, and to participate in that is to argue and do nothing more. What you'll find here is pious, self-absorbed intellectualism, not a daily dying to self.

Whether that's the truth of it or not, I'm not the one to say. But it does make some sense. Regardless, I feel I am returning to the self I was before the necessary (and admittedly pleasurable, exciting and educational) experience of college. Even as a kid I never had much regard for testimonies or "born-again" stories, so I won't create another martyr-ish example of self-righteousness here talking in unimportant specifics about my return to Christ. But I will say this:

It's not easy.

--

I mentioned a few weeks ago that a friend, Nick T., spent some time with me on his way back from a trip. He's being chrismated into the Orthodox Church in a few weeks with his little sister Erin, who was one of the dancers in the Concert and who, especially after this weekend, has become a close friend of mine.

In the basement of the music building, while our friends jammed in a practice room, four of us sat in the hallway, talking (like ya do) about life. The question of Erin's Orthodox conversion--and I'm not sure "conversion" is the right word, but it'll have to do--came up, and she spoke for a few solid minutes about faith, the "historical church," and her love for liturgy.

Someone speaking so frankly about their faith is something I haven't heard in a while, not even during the occasional--and dodgy--chat about religion with co-workers. And it's made me reconsider my own faith, which cannot be a bad thing. I get the feeling that reconsideration of my faith, the realignment of my trajectory towards Christ, needs to become a daily practice.

--

Incidentally, Erin also lent me her copy of The Orthodox Church, by Timothy Ware, which I will get started on today. I finished Mere Christianity this morning.

Heaven

"But, of course, when they ask for a lead from the Church most people mean they want the clergy to put out a political programme. That is silly."

-- C. S. Lewis, "Social Morality," from Mere Christianity

--

Still loving Lewis.

--

I've been placed in charge of the books in the storage room: unpacking the boxes, organizing the books, handling each of them (and some, believe you me, are valuable books in pristine condition) and very often stopping to flip through some pages. This is how I've spent the last two days at work.

Sometimes, the universe smiles on you.

--

Not sure if you can actually read the spines in this next one, so I'll just tell: It's an old (very, very old) collection of opera librettos and scores. Included are some of the greats (Boito, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, et al.), most of the books in perfect condition and wrapped in protective plastic; and the odd duck on top of the collection is an original Broadway production score of Annie, from its premiere in 1977, bound by two rubber bands--literally:

And finally, for those interested in child psychology books that sprang from a bizarre combination of Absurdism and "stickin' it to the man," please, please check this book out as soon as possible. Kept me laughing for the better part of an hour:

Inversion

"A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself. In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble--because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out.

That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or--if they think there is not--at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it."

-- C. S. Lewis, "The Practical Conclusion" in Mere Christianity

--

Yes.

--

Spoke for a long time with Nick T. last night about Christianity, Lewis, theatre, journalism, et al. It's the kind of discussion that I stopped having in Hillsdale about halfway through my time there. The all-encompassing kind. The closer graduation came, the more my thoughts were consumed with practicalities, future prospects and the like. Meandering through lay theology fell away.

It's refreshing to invert that, to bring meandering back and let the practicalities recede for some minutes.

--

Like running:

I've scoured for running music and, thanks to suggestions from many folks, I've added to my playlist. I tested it yesterday; great stuff, a pounding in my ears to match the pounding on pavement.

Actually pushed through The Wall that runners talk so much about. Wasn't really keeping track, but I think it happened after forty minutes of intervals (four minutes running, one minute walking). In the last mile, forwent intervals as an experiment, and pushed through ten minutes of straight running. My iPod went out, probably from the constant motion, and while I ran I fished for it in my pocket, which was hard because I was still running. I probably looked like I was being twisted by an invisible fiend--or something--and was trying to get away. Anyway, the long and short is that the iPod didn't come back for a few minutes, and that's when I hit The Wall and came through it, and no song was playing. That's probably good.

Zach H., formerly a cross-country runner, told me that "running is more Zen without music." I believe him. At some point I should try going it alone, with no singer in my ear. Hear the passing cars and stuff. Disregard gaining ideas: song length and distance and time; meditate on passing through space instead.

Let the music recede, hear the world. Or something like that.

--

More classes and workshops this week. February, being Black History Month, is slow for a non-black workshop leader; March's start also slow, but gaining speed. In like a lamb, in that way. The end of the month is rife with appointments, workshops, classes, shows, rehearsals, and more. I've completely forgotten about my taxes.

On Friday, TCTC's first drama class began, taught by yours truly. A barnacle on the yacht of history, I guess. But it went very well, despite my surprise at just how young a six-year-old really is. When they got their monologue selections (six lines of rhyme) they looked about ready to cry.

--

Tomorrow, a talk-back with third-graders about Jack & the Beanstalk. Today, rehearsals start for Tom Sawyer. And I realized last night that this may be my last performance in my last show. Definitely for a while, maybe ever.

And it's not really sobering, or gratifying, or really anything. It's inverted, just the way it ought to be but not how I would expect it. Not at all. I expect it to feel cumulative, like all roads have led here, and instead it feels like I've finally reached a junction to another highway and this last show is an exit ramp. A necessary transition, unfortunately also a barrier to break through. A slowing down before a stop before a speeding up again.

Realness is strangeness.

Steals

"Let's go--much as that dog goes,

intently haphazard. The

Mexican light on a day that

"smells like autumn in Connecticut"

makes iris ripples on his

black gleaming fur--and that too

is as one would desire--a radiance

consorting with the dance.

Under his feet

rocks and mud, his imagination, sniffing,

engaged in its perceptions--dancing

edgeways, there's nothing

the dog disdains on his way,

nevertheless he

keeps moving, changing

pace and approach but

not direction--"every step an arrival."

-- Denise Levertov, "Overland to the Islands," the first poem in Man in the Poetic Mode, published 1970, ed. Joy Zweigler

--

I love being surprised by book sales. Buy a bag for $4, $1, whatever the rate; shuffle through narrow aisles between picnic tables covered with obscurity stacks; avoid smelly and bearded book lover, huddled over his plunder of Civil War novels; observe the whippet woman in the maroon scarf, smell her churchy perfume coming from oily, wrinkly, clammy fingers wrapped in rings as she reaches for a Danielle Steele she somehow hasn't read; scan spines, titles printed in 1970s serif fonts of boldness and contrast stomping four-word economic arguments, catchphrases of days lost in reams and storehouses of media and dust, the days when journalists did their jobs well whether they were rich or poor, old or young, and when historians knew reacting to Thucydides wasn't a vain effort; flip elderly pages of black-and-white photographs of paragons and damsels doing what they did, eating and pointing fingers and struggling with grime; discover the faded green bookmark a ghost placed there between anonymous pages for reasons now unknowable; fill your bought bag with heaviness that appeals to you; feel the arm strength of a thief who uncovers a cache and must move it now; increase your plunder even as the bag splits in protest and cover corners peek through the breaches like curious kids watching rioters from a balcony;--again, I tell you, I love book sales.

That happened this morning.

--

My cache (in no order):

The Play and the Reader, by Johnson, Bierman & Hart

Theatre: A Way of Seeing, by M. S. Baranger

The New York Public Library: Performing Arts Desk Reference

Storyteller, by Ramon Royal Ross

American Words, by Mitford M. Mathews

News is a Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century, by Pete Hamill

Beowulf: A New Prose Translation, by E. Talbot Donaldson

Guide to English Literature: From Beowulf through Chaucer and Medieval Drama, by David M. Zesmer

This Is Pop: In Search of the Elusive of Experience Music Project, ed. by Eric Weisbard

The Best of Christian Writing 2000, ed. by John Wilson

Four Ways of Being Human, by Gene Lisitzky

Man in the Poetic Mode, ed. by Joy Zweigler

J. B., by Archibald MacLeish

Great Myths of Economics, by Don Paarlberg

On the Other Side of Tomorrow, by Harold Rogers

Buoyant Billions, Farfetched Fables, & Shakes Versus Shav, by Bernard Shaw

Circling Back, by Gary. H. Holthaus

Children's Plays for Creative Actors, by Claire Boiko

Howl's Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

--

And all that, folks, for $4 in a bag.

Trays

"Here my uncle turned to me and said, 'I understand you're a horse thief. I understand you stole a horse from the church. Smart boy. Let me see.' I leaned over and showed him where the horse's hoof had opened up my head. He laughed when he ran his finger lightly over the length of the scar and around the shaved patch where the hair was just growing in. 'May you have many more,' he told me."

-- Philip Roth, The Plot Against America

--

Rifling through old boxes in the storage room, a co-worker found what she called "retro filing trays." She also said, "They're kinda weird, but you can have 'em if you want 'em."

They look like standard Army issue trays, the kind an imaginary GI/accountant might set up in the bush:

I wanted 'em.

--

Another addition to the cubicle, courtesy of Mike M., one of "the shop guys." He installed shelves two days ago:

That pig head was found in yet another old Children's Theatre box. Reminds me of Lord of the Flies.

Tracks

"Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore them down and drove them out of his mind for the time--just as men's misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a Negro, and he was suffering to practice it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar birdlike turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music--the reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet--no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer."

-- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

--

Well, I've been a boy, I consider myself a diligent and attentive performer, this is my fourth time reading Tom Sawyer,--and I still can't whistle.

Too bad, I guess, that on Monday I start rehearsing the role of Tom Sawyer again. Show hits the stage in a month and a week.

--

During the last show's run, my own running slowed: from three times a week to one. But with a recent purchase of Under Armor (probably would've been more useful to buy it before winter, but it wasn't on sale then), with a new determination to trim up and slim down, with temperatures rising, with the daylight stretching into post-work hours,--I'm getting back into it. Not that I really fell out of "it," or had been in "it" long enough to call it an "it," but you know. Back into it. Take it. Run with it. Eh?

All that goes to say, I'm putting together a playlist of great running tunes. I'd like your help, gentle reader, gentle listener. Or not-so-gentle. Anyway.

--

Things I want in a running song:

Intensity, the feeling that the song is always driving you forward. Like a massuh's whip.

Pace of running, beats on footfalls, not fast enough to merit sprints but faster than most ballads and waltzes. Think Wes Anderson running scene music.

Length close to a whole number--that is, I'd rather have a song that was 4:01 minutes long than 3:41. The reason is, my running regimen is based on time, not distance. Songs that hit the two-, three- or four-minute marks are ideal.

Obscurity. I want to learn more music. The newer, the more easily it distracts me while I exercise. That's really where you come in.

For guidelines (and a shameless peek into what I'm listening to these days), these are my current Running Tracks:

"In Between Days" - Ben Folds

"What Would Brian Boitano Do?" - South Park

"Royal Orleans" - Led Zeppelin

"Woo Hoo" - The 5, 6, 7, 8s

"I Believe" - Third Day

"Get Rhythm" - Johnny Cash

"Take Me to Your Leader" - The Newsboys

"The Sound of Settling" - Death Cab for Cutie

"Rock and Roll Band" - Boston

"Revolution" - Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe version)

"The Distance" - Cake

"Hazy Shade of Winter" - Simon & Garfunkel

"My Little Japanese Cigarette Case" - Spoon

"Improv Rap" - Misdirection!

"The Story in Your Eyes" - The Moody Blues

"It Won't Be Long" - Evan Rachel Wood (AtU again)

"There's a Girl" - The Ditty Bops

"We Will Rock You" - Queen

"Bitch Went Nuts" - Ben Folds (actually, this song is great for running--meets all criteria)

"From Me to You" - The Beatles

"I Want You" - Bob Dylan

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" - The Beatles

"Tiki God" - Presidents of the United States of America

"Wait Up" - Uncle Tupelo

"Captain Kid" - Great Big Sea

"Stickshifts & Safetybelts" - Cake

"Over and Over Again" - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

"Travelin' Band" - CCR (another perfect running song)

"Rocket" - Mae

"Your Honor" - Regina Spektor

Not terribly eclectic. Could use more new rock...and some tracks that you'd think would be more suited to an exercise soundtrack ("We Will Rock You," for one, "The Distance" for another), are actually too slow to run to. Not every song can be a CCR jam, ya know...

--

Last: I'm gonna be in Hillsdale in two weekends for the Tower Dancers Concert. Hope to see folks there. Grabbin dinner with Reist, lunch with Jackson, to talk about the future and other things that excite boredom.

Dark

“Maleldil made us so. How could there ever be enough to eat if everyone had twenty young? And how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back—if we did not know that every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and that these are that day?”

- -- C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

--

It is Dark Monday. This is the one day off I have from the show, and perfect timing for a surprise visit from a Hillsdale friend: Nick T., on his way back from a nuptial ceremony in Cleveland, crashed for the night. We have a sort of rapport that grew out of having a similar taste in professors and classes, and we’ve both graduated and live in Kentucky. Talked about movies, life after college, and how we don’t like to talk about politics at work, total discussions bringing us till about five in the morning. Spike TV on mute was full of eye candy—the usual low Girls Gone Wild and LiveLinks commercials, a nonsensically lengthy erectile dysfunction ad, and reruns of “World’s Wildest Police Videos” rife with repetitive slow-mo.

I’m counting down to my acting class in a few hours, letting my guest sleep off the long drive and long talks. Trying to focus on what it is we do next with this group of tween actresses. They’ll do their monologues today, with feedback from their peers, but the setup is for this Wednesday’s audition workshop. It sometimes amazes me how difficult it is to teach children to say their names and smile.

--

Anyone who digs classical music—more specifically, pretentious variations on classical music—should check out The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach with Professor Peter Schickele. The 2-disc album from 1986 has a lot of fun with the uppity caste of classical music, the most fun of the fun being the “Unbegun Symphony,” a seven-minute rip of famous pieces. I also like his “New Horizons in Music Appreciation Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.”

My first real exposure to classical music occurred at age ten (maybe), when I discovered my dad’s cassette collection. He’d recorded some of his vinyl albums onto tape, including a few Mozart and Beethoven compilations. I slid them into my Talkboy (remember that silver handheld recording machine from Home Alone 2?) and listened to them as I fell asleep. For the longest time, I thought these were the complete works of Wolfgang and Ludwig, and it really wasn’t until I began to scour the Hillsdale College library that I realized just how shallow my knowledge of classical music was. I still don’t think it’s that deep—whenever I see a complete collection of works by a single composer, I feel a small twinge of fear, or intimidation. I think of music-major friends who are able to identify composer, work and movement almost instantly, and it makes me want to bow in awe.

--

(the rest of this post was written at the end of the day)

--

About that Talkboy: Got it as a Christmas present when I was little. Probably was the first experience I had with over-asking for something and actually getting it. Wore the thing out. Took it on a family vacation to Europe (or maybe that's where it was given to me) and spent many bored hours narrating our excursions, surely to the annoyance of anyone within earshot.

--

So passes the Dark Monday.

Made it to work after the class, where only one of nine students didn't have her monologue memorized. That's the first step, I told her, because we can't work on anything if you don't remember what you're supposed to do, what you're supposed to say.

Last summer, a child in my acting class didn't have his piece memorized when it came time to perform, audition-style, for the artistic director of the theatre. He stumbled and mumbled his introduction and then twisted on his toes for a full five minutes, unable to leave the stage, unable to speak. The director and I just watched the poor kid squirm until it was clear he'd taken the point, and from that point on, we never had problems with him again.

The girl who didn't learn her monologue today sat in the folding chair, smiled blankly at me, flared her nostrils, and whispered, "Wow, this is awkward." It got a laugh, at least. The girl has natural comedic talent, but the knowledge that it comes naturally has produced in her an attitude that shies away from work. And say what you will about acting, but it's still work. Harder work than some folks realize.

--

The same goes for my job, I suppose. No delusions of martyrdom, not anything like that. I guess right now is the artistic doldrums, an extended period of uninspiring, sparse work. As I was telling Nick T. today, I sometimes feel like it won't matter whether I actually go to work.

Everyone's gone from the office right now. It's quiet and dark. Instead of bemoaning that the best times in this job have passed, I need to recreate the joy. Especially if these are the first of the last days at this desk.

Wright

"Indeed, Jack had already begun to think of the beanstalk as his beanstalk, as if it were a close friend or pet, instead of the beany cloud-busting belfry, the grandiose green garrison, the lovely legendary leafy looming legume--that it was."

-- a line from Jack & the Beanstalk which was not in the original script but was added (and cut) during rehearsals

--

Well. Jack & the Beanstalk opened this morning. First public show, tonight. Buy tix here.

It went off hitch-free for the first school show, to our shock and awe. During the second show, the only major snag was an ad-lib nightmare when the cow--played by two dancers in a very sweaty costume; see here--entered late and sans the legs of the back half. From my point of view, anyway, it wasn't a fiasco.

This, among many other things, marks the first (officially) professional playwriting credit I have attained. The baby was in the works since July, if I remember correctly, and seeing it grow from conception to production has taught me five big lessons about writing for the stage.

I wouldn't bother to go into those lessons here, except that they were things I didn't learn in college (nor, arguably, could have learned). And before I make the list, I'll say that having a professional playwriting credit doesn't make me a professional playwright, just as vending muffins at a bake sale does not make someone a salesperson, nor does blogging daily make someone a writer.

I'll also say that I didn't do the writing solo; my co-playwright, Kelly G., came up with most of the ideas and really led the charge as far as creativity goes. If her main metaphorical utensil was a blank pen writing dialog, mine was the red pen, editing.

--

1.) Don't write for yourself. Temptations abound when the ink is flowing (or when the keys are clacking), and my worst tendency was to make inside jokes. This includes more than just jokes that I find funny. Into this category I'd put references to good but forgotten songs, movies, celebrities, etc. True, audiences love it when poppish allusions come at them unexpectedly, as Shrek and Will Ferrell movies have taught us, but too much turns your script into a long and insufferably bad "Family Guy" episode. Keep the jokes plot- and character-related, and don't get sidetracked by the "What if" quotient.

2.) Don't write for dummies. Especially when writing for an attention-lacking crowd of children, you may want to dumb everything down to the point that the dialog resembles a one-sided tennis match:

JOE. Hey, Walrus, did you hear?

WALRUS. No. What happened, Joe?

JOE. I'll tell you, Walrus. It involved Jackie.

WALRUS. What?

JOE. Well, I'll tell you. She dropped her groceries.

WALRUS. Oh no! Then what happened?

JOE. She had to pick everything back up again!

WALRUS. Wow! Did she succeed?

JOE. Well, I'll tell you, Walrus...

Let the information come from many sources. Detective stories are great, but even a character whose main role is to question people can get really bland, really quickly if the sleuth only asks questions of only one person. As my journalism adviser in high school told us, "Show; don't tell." Kids will remember something they see, and they will paraphrase what they hear. Dumbing your script down will accomplish only one thing: your script will seem dumb.

3.) Don't write for specific actors. Sure, it's nice to have a local celebrity who appears in your shows, but writing roles tailored to them only creates more problems. Few producers, I think, consider how having a role "written for you" affects the local celebrity's attitude towards the role; they are not expected to act anymore, just be themselves. The result is either local celebrities who feel offended by the kind of ga-ga worship that infiltrates every aspect of the production, or local divas certain that people will pay to see them no matter what show they're in. The former will continue to do your shows and feel uncomfortable because they think they're doing you a favor; the latter will give you a big headache for the same reason.

This flies in the face of most playwriting that happens in small theatres. The thought process goes like this: Director X has already asked Actor Y to play Role Z, so Z should be written for Y under the supervision of X. That's backwards; it moves Z-Y-X instead of X-Y-Z. I think a more appropriate method is to write Z as X advises, and then to ask Y if they like the role. Chances are they'll still say yes.

What happened in J&tB was this. Two local celebrities were asked to play two main characters, and we began to write for the celebrities and not the characters. Then, as rehearsals neared, both celebs dropped out suddenly, leaving us with holes in our cast and a script that no longer made sense. Recasting and rewriting followed. I must admit, the "finished" product is still full of devices that ought to have been cut when the celebrities left.

4.) Pay attention to the in-betweens. Scene changes are chores. You have to make sure you have those done before you have fun. If you don't put enough talk time over a scene change or resort to musical interludes, your show will hit tech rehearsal and grind to a halt. "Who was moving the stool?" "I was, but I couldn't make it because of a costume change."

Costume changes are even worse, because while the actor is between costumes, they can do nothing. I can remember chaotic moments in high-school theatre when I was quick-changing into a tux and delivering lines off-stage. The audiences heard mutters of "get that button" and microphone brushes instead of my lines.

Also: Give your actors breaks. No one likes to be on stage for an hour with no water/bathroom break. My mistake this time was to think playing the Narrator would be easy, so easy that I could stand behind a podium, watch the action, and recite my lines. No sir. My feet are killing me now at the end of each show because I never leave the stinkin stage.

5.) Kill puppies. A great rule I learned in high school, it is the hardest to obey. When you're being creative, you create like the end product will be flawless, and you end up with all of these little puppies that you love and they're so cute and they clutter up your show and poop all over it. Some puppies mature into obedient, reliable friends, but most of them just make life difficult for everyone involved in your show.

A general rule for identifying puppies: The more you love it, the more it needs to go.

My puppies include:

- Excessive alliterations - Applies to rhymes, too. You'd think these would always be funny, but they're not. The first one is fine, the second is fecund, and the third is a turd. As a reader, I like alliterations because they're whimsical and witty (read some chapters out of Roth's The Great American Novel for some killer alliterations). But actors use repetitive sounds to warm up their voices because they are difficult to do. Alliterations help the mind to memorize, but they tangle the tongue.

- Repetition - Again. Tennis match dialog is only interesting if it goes somewhere.

There's a spot, early in this show, where the Beanseller gives Jack the bag of magic beans. She says, "Here are five--magic--beans!" and he says, "Five?" and she says, "Yes," and he says, "Magic?" and she says, "Yes," and he says, "Beans?" and she says--? That's right. She says, "yes," just like she did the previous two times he asked a question, and by the way, his question is a repetition of what she told him he's holding in his hand. The whole thing (rhymes with "bit") eats up about twenty seconds, and each show I stand there at the podium wishing the scene would just move on already.

Guess who fought to keep that part in?

--

So, yes: Lots of lessons learned. Now that this show has begun its run, I feel freer to discuss the process of getting it here. If I ever find myself playwriting again, you can be sure I'll make a point not to repeat my mistakes.

Well. The third show happens soon. Gotta grab dinner and a decent parking space.