The Lazy Fly Dies

Penuins are hiding someting

2012-02-14T09:53:00.000-08:00

...It's knees.

Week 1- St. Augustine's Dilemma

2012-02-13T13:40:00.000-08:00

This week is the week that the official curriculum calls...something, and I call "St. Augustine's Dilemma."

I call it that because I spend the week focusing on this quotation that I read somewhere and attributed to St. Augustine.

"I do not understand my own nature. Why do I do the things that I know I should not and fail to do the things which I know I should?"

I read it again a little while ago, and it turns out it was actually St. Paul.

But it's totally something that Augustine would have said.

Also, now that I think of it, this question isn't what we could accurately call a dilemma.

I unhelpfully to my students, and helpfully to myself believe that English language instruction, like English itself, is mostly about the spirit of intention. So that's fine.

I like to consider this question with my students because I want to know the answer. Roughly 45% of the monkeys in my mind are currently conducting research into this inquiry. Because I think that if we could crack it, I could solve all of my problems.

Every time I think I've got the answer, though, I don't. Or it's not practically applicable and therefore not satisfying.

If you know, please tell me. Until then, I'll keep asking these ESL students.

John's Poop Story

2011-12-28T20:32:00.001-08:00

Amateur

2011-11-07T13:52:00.000-08:00

The glowing review that we got for Pardon My Invasion referred to us as amateurs, which hurt some feelings in the cast. I can understand why they're insulted by what might be a misnomer in intention, but in my case it is totally accurate.

I am such an amateur.

The word comes from the same root as "amour" and it meant, originally "lover of" and then somehow evolved to designate someone who is not "professional."

Etymologically, the opposite of pursuing something as your career is loving it.

I'm happy that the designation exists. Theatre isn't my job. My job is that other thing I do. The one where occasionally I have to cry in the stairwell eating tiny snickers bars because I'm powerless before and meaningless to the people who sign my paychecks. I'm not a lover of it.

Precisely because theatre is not my *job,* I don't ever have to feel so small and powerless when I do it. I work in the expansive terms of a glorious amateur.

I reject the notion that getting paid to do something is what makes it real, or what makes you a real practitioner of it. It's fully possible to make a financially stable career of loveless crap. Probably much more possible.

And what's the real insult? You're not "professional," meaning that it's not your source of income, or there's no passion in it?

"Fadeout"

2011-07-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

Dear People Whose Scripts I Am Reading,

There is no "fade to" in theatre. When you are writing a play, you can't write "fade to..." or "fadeout."

Thank you.

Interesting

2011-04-15T09:55:00.001-07:00

Steal like an artist.

Ash Wednesday

2011-03-09T20:35:00.000-08:00

From T.S. Eliot, my man on the scene:

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

Acting is hard

2011-03-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

Only because of the persuasive charm and unrejectable kindness of Chris Morse, I find myself "acting" in a Superheroes this week. My presence isn't doing much for the show, but it certainly is a nice remedial course in acting is hard.

Tonight's lessons:

1. When I am directing, I often wonder why actors can't just sit still and disappear when they aren't acting. Answer: because they are human people. It's *boring* sitting there while other people do stuff.

2. When you are on the stage part of the stage, facing out, you have no idea what you look like. I had completely forgotten that.

I hope the detriment to this show will end up paying dividends for actors I work with in the future.

Also, 3. Props are fun.

米少一点，跑多一点

2011-03-07T20:29:00.000-08:00

Walking back from a field trip on Friday, Kim YongChel came up to me, earnest as a Mormon and asked, "Teacher? Do you know fat?"

He informed me that fat "makes pieces in your organs and affects your body shape." And all of this was going somewhere, too.

"So, I think you should give up snacks."

I can always count on my friends from Asian countries to point this kind of information out to me. Less rice, more running.

I asked Kim what would give my life meaning if I didn't have snacks, and he suggested friendship, which, what can you do with that? Since his plea is coinciding with Lent, I'm going to give it a go.

OK, Plays

2011-03-03T18:30:00.000-08:00

Daniel Student asked me to ask some plays, ideally before the end of the week. That was about a month ago, and I have only read the first 20 pages of each of the plays, so I am a bad friend, bad colleague and not in any position to criticize, all at once.

But I just have to say. That plays need action. I just read four plays, and in two the first twenty pages were characters addressing the audience with paragraphs of exposition. Saying who they were; what their backgrounds were. What they wanted.

The "wright" part of "playwright" is not "write," as in, to put words on the page. It's "wright" like in "wheelwright." It means maker. Making a wheel is a skill, and if you don't have the skill, the thing won't carry people.

If build your play skillfully, your characters won't need to *tell* me who they are and what they want, because your story will tell me that.

I know that creating a script is very difficult work. I wish more were going on to help writers develop skill and virtuosity. I would love to see less play writing, and more playwrighting.

Yes, I do.

2011-03-02T19:04:00.000-08:00

"Heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity."
— John Barth

Do be do be do be do.

2011-02-26T06:27:00.000-08:00

Continually, teaching language brings me back to theatre.

Let’s learn the verb “to be.” “Be” is what we call a “stative” verb. Stative verbs are the opposite of action verbs, and that means they describe things that “are,” rather than things we do. As an English student, you need to know the stative verbs because you can’t use them in the progressive form (the one we use to say what is happening right now) the way you can for action verbs. For example, you can say “I am running” but you can’t say “I am having a car” because “to have” is a state. You can’t choose it (you can choose to try to get, but you can’t choose to have.) You have it or you don’t.

Sometimes we use “be” in the –ing form. Like “stop being stupid, Yoon.” But it’s understood from the form that Yoon is choosing to be stupid. If she simply were stupid, we wouldn’t ask her to stop.

Some actors use be in the –ing form, “I am being a king,” “I am being angry,” but in theatre we understand that that’s not ideal. So we instruct actors not to “be” but to “do.” We understand that the nature of “be” is that it isn’t chosen, so we ask “what are you doing?” A beat is about completing an action, not “being” a thing or feeling.
All of this grammar and theatre nerdery matters for the only reason that anything matters- these approaches point to truth. When I accuse Yoon of being stupid, I am accusing her of not being true to her nature and capacity. When an actor is “being happy,” she is not delivering a truthful performance. And truthfully, in life we cannot choose to be, only to do.

On Shit

2011-02-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite playwrights in Philly, and someone whose work and ideas I admire a lot recently presented a play which ended with a character throwing a bucket of shit on the audience.

I'm not sure what to feel about the play itself, but I can say with certainty that throwing a bucket of shit on the audience is the exact and polar opposite of anything I ever want to do.

Doesn't the audience get a bucket of shit thrown on them enough? Just kidding. But actually not just kidding.

Why do we do this?

"Hold a mirror up to the audience,""Force people out of their complacency" these phrases and their most misused cousin "tell the truth" come up a lot in our discussion of our role as artists.

I know that I am not qualified to do these things, and I don't like being theatred at by people who think they are. As a person who lives it, I can report that life is scary and difficult, and that holding a mirror up to yourself is one of the scariest and most difficult things you can do in it. That's the *truth.* To hold an audience captive, and then try to force that mirror in their faces would border on violence if it were ever successful. Thankfully it's not. Mostly audiences just leave with the vague notion of having been mean spiritedly patronized. You're welcome.

Telling the truth is an act of humility. Otherwise, it's a lie going around with a pious name. That's my least favorite kind of lie because it diminishes people's capacity to offer or receive any actual honesty.

We call that part of the theater "the house." Don't invite someone into your house because you think they need to be taught something about themselves by you. Would you like that? Would you go there a second time ?

Eat! Pray! Love! Hide it under Ulysses!

2011-02-24T01:57:00.000-08:00

You know what, I'm just going to say it. I read Eat, Pray, Love. Twice. And I liked it both times.

And then, last night, I went with two beautiful redheads to the Ethical Culture Society to listen to Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote it, speak. Yeah. That's right.

Usually I don't like being counted among groups of women. The more they all look like me, the more I hate it and the more I want to get a tattoo on my face. Two women who run a gourmet chocolate company were at this event, giving free samples. I wish they didn't but they knew their audience. That chocolate was good.

Either this was an unusual event or I'm calming down with age, because rather than trying to re-imagine myself into a person too unique to enjoy a pop culture phenomenon for ladies, I felt kind of relieved. I'm relieved that an Ethical Culture society building full of women responded to that story the same way I did. For once, I'd rather not be alone.

Right before the event, Rachel leaned over and whispered "this is going to ruin the book." And then a miraculous thing happened. It' didn't. Elizabeth Gilbert appears to be a flawed person with a tremendous amount of grace. She had about ten years on most of the audience, and we clearly, really needed an auntie. As she talked about failing and getting confused and making lists and feeling shitty, I could feel a collective sigh of not insignificant relief.

It was nice.

I lied to my friends

2011-02-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

When I used to be kind of in this Buddhist cult, we would say a prayer that goes like:

"For the first time I'm glad about the Buddha, for the first time I'm glad about the Dharma, for the first time, I'm glad about the Sangha. For the second time, I'm glad about the Buddha, for the second time..." etc.

Anyway. I'm glad about the Sangha. Which is "the community." In the cult, this meant all the other cult people. Really, though, I need help. Life is too hard to navigate and to map and signpost and to travel down the road of. And I can't do it by myself. That's the real reason I wanted to meet you guys for dinner and talk about what we're going to do.

For the millionth time, I'm glad about the Sangha.

It rains and rains...

2011-01-15T10:06:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of 小行星 English language learning program:

A LAZY FLY

Narrator:A farm.Look，beautiful flowers!

Flowers:A lovely day! Hello,bees!

Bees:Hello,beautiful flowers!

A Bee:Let's make honey.

Bees:OK!

Narrator:They are working.

Bees:Look, a fly!

Fly:Oh,I'm hungry.

Bees:Eat ,eat.

Fly:Thank you!

Bees:Not at all.Good-bye!

Fly:Oh,I'm sleepy.

Narrator:Look,birds come.

Birds:What a lazy fly!

Cat:Meow.meow.meow.

Narrator:The cat is working.

Fly:Oh,I'm hungry.

Cat:Go away ,Lazy Fly!

Narrator:The cat is angry.

Duck:Quack,QUACK,QUACK.

Narrator:The duck is working.

Fly:Oh,I'm hungry.

Duck:Go away,Lazy Fly!

Narrator:The duck is angry.

Chicken:Cheep,Cheep,Cheep.

Narrator:The chicken is working.

Fly:Oh ,I'm hungry.

Chicken:Go away,Lazy Fly!

Narrator:The chicken is angry.

Fly:Oh,I'm hungry.I'm cold.

Narrator:It rains and rains.

The lazy Fly dies.