love sky, love grass, love clouds

the acting marathon is over. i call it an acting marathon because it is the first time i have done three plays back-to-back. i am grateful for the marathon. it was at turns exhilarating, excruciating, energizing, and exhausting. GLASS MENAGERIE taught me the value of a supportive and engaged director (i felt the lack thereof); BOOTH taught me the importance of broad characterization (i didn't quite achieve it, but got closer) and sheer gumption; and TRUE WEST showed me i can be completely physical onstage (my right hand ring finger is still swollen like a small sausage). of course i learned other things too...

christmas came and went unobtrusively, though it is worth noting that i enjoy it much more when i wake up and share it with a loved one. it was nice to spend my first christmas morning with david.

speaking of david, we're moving in together this week, to a 3-bedroom house, and we are so excited. at this very moment, as i type, i am also procrastinating on packing up my books and shelves, dvds and tables, clothes and kitchen. basically, everything. today (the 27th), the house is officially ours, and david is at his apartment packing his stuff as well. we hope to be all in by wednesday the 31st.

so i went for a walk this morning, because the weather is like love. 

nature walk

i saw a whole lot of cardinals on my walk today.

snuggly

getting a little sick has allowed me to stay in these past two days, do nothing, and not feel guilty about it. it's nice. yesterday i watched mike leigh's NAKED and later, some simpsons episodes. david came home with all kinds of christmas cheer and we set up a little tree in the corner of the living room and put ornaments on it. i was dismayed at how much of a curmudgeon i've become... i had to make an effort to get up and put ornaments on the branches... that used to be one of my favorite parts of christmas. luckily david's ebullience was large enough to carry the both of us until i was ready to jump in.

today i heated up david's leftover potato soup and watched BED AND BOARD, the final antoine doinel movie made by truffaut. it was just the right movie to watch for today. the little decorated and lighted tree lights the corner of the dark room. i sit on the couch under a blanket with my cat. sometimes it's nice to be a little under the weather.

funny, one thing i noticed watching NAKED yesterday and BED AND BOARD today: both of the main characters deliver speeches about how they're never bored. that is something i have said for a while now, how the only people who are bored must be very boring themselves, because there's always something to do, or think about. 

vocabulary

my mom, sister, brother-in-law and nephew came to see TRUE WEST yesterday. i had warned my mom that she wouldn't like it. there's profanity and violence and i get strangled at the end. i just didn't think it would be her cup of tea. but she came anyway. i was shocked when afterwards she called me and enthused over how much she'd enjoyed it. i asked someone to pinch me but they thought i was weird and walked away. my mom even said "i think daddy would have liked it." strange. this is a play where i pee in the sink, throw my brother on the ground and spit threats at him, and hump a chair. and she thinks daddy would have enjoyed it?

in any case, i'm glad a piece of my family came to see the play, and i'm relieved that they actually enjoyed it.

in other news... david and i saw MILK yesterday. it was sad, inspiring. good performances. 

i'm feeling sick. i've been staving it off for some time but i think it's finally encroaching upon me. 

acting notes

i like "listen to the lion" by van morrison.

so my theory on why i'm hurting myself during TRUE WEST: during my college career, several of my teachers told me i was too much in my head and not enough in my body. these criticisms have nagged at the back of my mind ever since then, and a few years ago when i saw a videotape of a production i was in (eugene o'neill's HAIRY APE), i noticed that all the other guys on stage had bodies that actually moved, whereas i looked sort of like a head on top of a plank with legs. recently, while doing GLASS MENAGERIE, the director said, casually, not knowing the total-shock effect his comment would have on me, "your body is very passive."

argh!

in approaching TRUE WEST, i was working with a very physical director who, 12 years ago, had played the same part i was playing. he talked a lot about the violence and physicality of the play, and often told me that the energy of the acting was more important than the words themselves. he pushed me to be more aggressive in almost every single moment of the play. so when the performance finally came about, i was integrated more into my body onstage than i've ever been before. i think i was so physically aware that i actually turned off some part of my brain; or maybe more aptly, i turned off some part of my brain in order to achieve that physical connection. and so i wasn't keeping an eye on myself and my actions, but was just letting myself go onstage. it's not so much that i was losing control, but i was allowing the body to take over, and this quality, coupled with a few other things (the adrenaline of performance, the wrong golf club) caused me to cut myself a few times during the first few performances. 

it's funny when you're onstage and you hurt yourself, you don't usually feel it. i had gouged a small, deep gash into my left hand pinky and it didn't hurt. i looked down and blood was pouring down my finger. not until the show was over did it actually start to smart a little.

but on sunday, i was able to pull more head awareness into my performance, to temper the violence with a little observation, so that those physical mishaps were less likely to occur. it made the show much more fun and gave me more of a framework in which to play, rather than worry about what i would be maimed by next.

i'm learning a lot about acting. there are reviews here and here.

23 songs for winter

ah, i yearn for those college days and nights... those girls and boys on chapel street were so beautiful and voluptuous and mysterious, offering you their rolling rock and whiskey... she swooned when "cold cold ground" came on... they knew all the words to "the first attack" by the proclaimers, and they sang them full-voiced around the kitchen table... also that "we are" song that leslyn wrote... you were a genius in the kitchen with a single glance... and it smelled like dirt and perfume and beer and weed and books...

dave gave me a tape i listened to non-stop on a winter break trip i took with my parents. i sat in the back seat as we drove through the oppressive south. i couldn't have cared less what was outside those windows besides green fields, cows, and sky. it was all a beautiful motion painting for me. i was stoned and wedged in among the suitcases, headphones on.

SIDE A: ELEVEN SONGS FOR WINTER

1. PLAINSONG by The Cure

2. LOOKS LIKE MONA LISA by Michelle Shocked

3. CLOSER TO FINE by Indigo Girls

4. HEY JONI by Sonic Youth

5. MUST I PAINT YOU A PICTURE? by Billy Bragg

6. THIS IS THE DAY by The The

7. DOUBLE-DECKER BED by Phranc

8. TEMPTATION by Tom Waits

9. LIL' KING OF EVERYTHING by Los Lobos

10. TROUBLE ME by 10,000 Maniacs

11. THE PAN WITHIN by The Waterboys

SIDE B: TWELVE MORE

1. I FEEL POSSESSED by Crowded House

2. YOUNG NED OF THE HILL by The Pogues

3. SOUNDS GREAT WHEN YOU'RE DEAD by Robyn Hitchcock

4. WE CAN WORK IT OUT by The Beatles

5. GOD'S COMIC by Elvis Costello

6. KISSABILITY by Sonic Youth

7. WELL I WONDER by The Smiths

8. SIDE OF THE ROAD by Lucinda Williams

9. A PAIR OF BROWN EYES by The Pogues

10. BABY PLAYS AROUND by Elvis Costello

11. THE SPANGLE MAKER by Cocteau Twins

12. EVERY LITTLE COUNTS by New Order

(HIDDEN TRACK: PROVIDENCE by Sonic Youth)

 it was such a beautiful collection of music, each song leaving you perfectly prepared for the next, especially the transition from "sounds great when you're dead" to "we can work it out." 

i think part of the beauty of this tape must have been its tacit expression of my relationship with dave at the time, which was full of possibilities and love, and a certain degree of angst.

in my classic nostalgic manner, i am recompiling this tape on my ipod so that i can remember that wonderful period of my life.

refurbishing

yesterday was my first full day off since september 28. i'm not counting thanksgiving because that was a very busy day. since sunday september 28 i have had something going on, some rehearsal, class, or performance every single day. wow!

so, yesterday i worked on re-loading the new iPod. david took my broken one back to costco and because it was still in the 90-day guarantee period, they exchanged it for a new one. it was a pretty fun thing to do all day. i had saved almost everything on an external hard drive so i don't think i lost much. now today i get to go through it and find graphics for all the albums that don't have them. 

what's particularly fun is finding graphics for the cds people made for me. if i can't find a picture of the person online (facebook is handy for this), i'll find some other picture that seems to suggest that person, or to suggest the nature of the music they put on the cd. my goal for today is to find an image for every single album on that iPod. i'm into keeping it simple this week.

TRUE WEST opened on thursday and is going well. i have theories about why i have been hurting myself during it, which i'll share in the next post... stay tuned.

life imitating art

...but today i just feel kinda sweaty and old. tired, achy, withdrawn. 

our set for TRUE WEST is really life-like. it's quite beautifully done. we even have running water in the sink. the sink is hooked up to a spigot in the costume shop, which is just adjacent to the theatre. apparently, last night, the spigot in the costume shop wasn't securely turned off, and so the costume shop flooded somewhat. i got a politely infuriated email from the university head of costumes, explaining that many of the feet pedals on the sewing machines had been resting in pools of water when she arrived this morning, which means there may be lots of dollars worth of damage. 

though i feel some marginal sense of responsibility for this (probably more than i should), i have never touched the hoses, spigots, or anything else in the costume shop. i have this deep urge to write to the head of costumes and apologize, but i never pretended to have any relationship with that aspect of this show. my job is as an actor, and that's where i draw the line. i think it's good to know what your job is, to contribute without over-extending, so that's what i've done. i'm sure that this inadvertent (maybe irresponsible?) flooding problem will damage the relationship between AtticRep and the university, but with any luck it will make us more aware of our actions and responsibilities to be aware of how we treat others' property.

it's funny that it's happened with this show, though, because onstage we destroy property like hell, and mom returns and admonishes us. 

twelve-one-oh-eight

welcome december!

my iPod's imminent demise has inspired me to blow the dust off my old iPod Shuffle. it's one of the old ones, about 1"x3" and white. to load it and charge it you plug it directly into the port on the computer. it was given to me by nic huang a couple years ago and i remember being amazed by it (and even writing about it on my blog) before i upgraded to all the other fancy iPods i ended up getting...

i dropped david off at work and did a few loads of laundry at the laundromat. on my way home i stopped and got a soy chai latte. it goes well with the crisp weather of today. 

during last night's rehearsal i cut my right-hand middle finger on an aluminum can. i'm surprised it's the only injury i've sustained on that show so far-- we tend to get pretty violent. i guess most of the violence is perpetrated on the objects. we've destroyed two typewriters (one on purpose and one inadvertently); i mutilated a few typewriter ribbon cartridges (remember those?); the other night i jumped sideways and landed on a plastic mug which shattered; i broke a plate and a picture frame. for me it's kind of fun to practice this kind of violent recklessness, which i really don't allow in my everyday life. but i do sustain some regret for the broken objects-- especially that typewriter, which i pounded upon with a 9-iron. (it wasn't my idea-- it's in the script!) with any luck, all this violence will pay off and the audience will get some visceral thrill from our antics. 

the chill in the air makes me want to write, draw, create something. i like that.