Thursday blog and I'm glad to be in the office -
Things with the teenager are no good right now and he's doing that teenagery thing of making them as bad as possible, complaining about how much he hates it all the while because - clearly - it's everyone else's fault. This is all pretty normal stuff, doesn't make it fun...just normal. We're having our Tyler Durden moment in the household and on the blog.
Hung out on Sunday night talking parenting madness with Jason and a couple guys and it was good to just get some of it out there, talk to someone that can relate to being stuck in this position - my friend Little Joe used to say it was like having your hand tied to a hot stove, I'm going to go with the Fight Club thing. Any sane and thinking person would stop doing something like this but you can't.
"This is your pain, this is your burning hand. It will hurt more than you've ever been burned, and you will have a scar."
Some days it feels like I'm just propped up, some days it seems like things are better and lots of them feel like everything you do is like making it worse.
and of course, since I haven't yet managed to compartmentalize totally, the mixed emotions that go into just dealing with the teenager extend well outside the house. Even though I feel like I don't have any energy left to do other things I am so glad to do them - just because they're something else. It makes it seem like I'm really into my job or really 'letting go' when I get to improvise but a big chunk of it is just the relief of a change of pace.
"No...what you're feeling is premature enlightenment."
It feels stupid to go to work and spend time on theories on 'how people learn and can use interactive technology' when my boy is self-destructing and I don't have any energy or attention left to spend on helping corporations train their employees better (or, honestly, give a fuck if they do), it feels odd to think about getting onstage to make other people laugh when the teenager is unhappy enough to eclipse everything funny and trying to act energetic, happy and carefree seems at best hypocritical and at worst completely acting happy and carefree instead of being that way, even for a few hours. But at the same time I'm glad I have all these things to inject some fun (the shows), maybe distract a little (the job) and remind me, just like we keep telling the teenager and ourselves - this isn't all there is. Everyone uses the phrase (and I have) "this too shall pass" as if it will just wash over us and be done, the truth is nowhere near that gentle.
"The first soap was made from the ashes of heros, like the first monkey shot into space. Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing"
So one hand is tied to the stove but the other hand can still juggle a little bit to keep the mind off the stove. But everyday you go back home and put your hand back on the stove (or under the chemicals to keep the Fight Club thing going) again, because you can't just quit. that isn't part of the deal.
"Shut up. Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers bailed on us, what does that tell you about God?"
it's not all without positive revelations as well - Having the boy early in life as I did, I have often thought about time that was "lost" of my teenage years, and thoughts about getting that time "back". Even though I still got to do most things and had a good amount of latitude to be childish during that time there's still the big ripples that come from something like that. It's come up many times when I've spoken to therapists and counselors and all sorts of professionals. It's obviously a major thing that anyone in the field (or with a brain) would expect to cause some emotional issues. Strangely, having a teenager has been the best treatment for the conflicted feelings that come from loving your kid and feeling like you missed some time as a teenager because of having a kid. Standing where I am now it's pretty clear - As much as it sucks being the parent of a teenager I wouldn't choose to BE a teenager again for anything. As unhappy as he makes everyone around him, he is less happy. Nevermind that he causes a lot of it. He has to go through this and make it out the other side and even though it sucks it's gotten me closer to the other side of some things that have weighed on me for a long time.
"It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything"
Congratulations, you're one step closer to hitting bottom.
Showing posts with label "deliver me from clever art". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "deliver me from clever art". Show all posts
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
just like every light you see might be the one that sets you free
total improv bullshit theory today - I have to warn you that reading anything below might only be of interest to and good for my brain. I can't vouch for yours but hey, it's my blog. Tune in tomorrow and I'm sure I'll have a cute kid story or angry observational rant about the world at large.
still here? you were warned.
While having this same exchange last night it was pointed out that I probably spend way too much time thinking about stuff like this and I can't exactly argue the point, but allow me to nerd-out for a few minutes as a result of way too much thought about things that were meant to just be enjoyed and probably not picked apart.
I have been pushing a bunch of people around me to go and read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (because I love it way too much but also) because the way he uses language is super interesting to me from an improv standpoint. He creates this whole environment...not world, because the world he's talking about is actually this one, only different...but it's not different to the people that inhabit it of course because it's just "the world" so that's how he describes it, the characters interact with it and how it comes across to the reader....as the everyday, even though it couldn't be more unfamiliar in places.
He describes an environment that is essentially very foreign as if you already know about it, and instead of stopping to wedge in explanations of the things in that environment he makes reference to them repeatedly in context so the reader starts to gradually understand not only "what" is being described but also how it fits into the world, how it affects people around it and so on. The whole thing makes the world feel more familiar and comfortable since he doesn't break the idea that it's actually a place you'd recognize. He describes it the same way you would describe something you pass every day on your way to work.
which brings me to full-on theater dorkery.
it's the same set of actions that goes into establishing a really cool improv scene or larger environment. On stage you rarely (unless the form calls for it) just stop and describe the backdrop or environment or people in it ("hello, recently ex-girlfriend and welcome back to the office in which we both work".....no. not unless you're doing that to be meta-funny to other improvisers. You have become Galaxy Quest. Sometimes that can be super funny) to the audience, explain what a new random element "is" or who the people you're seeing "are" in this world you're creating on the fly. You do it by showing how the people on the stage relate to each other given their place and status in it, demonstrating the impact things in the world have on the people you're seeing and vice versa and the audience develops a textured and comfortable, if more or less complete, understanding of what might be a really very altered world that stretches way beyond just what is happening on stage. You create history and action at the same time, and at an alarming speed.
and I think that is unique to both forms of narrative - science fiction being one of the only literary genre's purposely grounded (until it crosses into pure fiction/fantasy) in reality or projections of possible outcomes of reality and creates THIS world with a simple "what if" applied to it, as opposed to a new world (in the case of fantasy) which bears explanation to make sense on some level or (in the case of "regular" fiction) simply uses the world we're in as a backdrop and plays out a scenario inside it.
Whereas, in improvisation, the rules and methods are largely the same - you create a 'world' in which the rules are changed (to steal completely from Tim Uren - you establish rules for the universe and run with it....a world in which all newspapers are missing the Sports section and GO) enough to make it unique and unpredictable but it's still inhabited by humans or things that we understand as 'real'. Of course, in scripted theater you hit the same marks as literature, either the story is one of fantasy or a scenario set "here", which both take some explaining to the audience as something they wouldn't necessarily understand, find familiar or relate to (in the case of fantasy) or they get it and you're not creating anything "new" in terms of the context.
Sure, there are people out there doing super-abstract work that goes to the other extreme for some insane amount of grant money that deal in neither, where the actors don't represent anything that currently exists and the context is removed entirely and can't be understood via normal vocabulary - that's called "contemporary dance" but as theater goes i think we're it.
We are totally the "Science Fiction" of "Theater"
no wonder we attract all the weirdos and can't get taken seriously.
whew. brain is tired.
glad I got that out of the way so I can go back to just digging Sci-fi for being entertaining and improv for just being fun.
still here? you were warned.
While having this same exchange last night it was pointed out that I probably spend way too much time thinking about stuff like this and I can't exactly argue the point, but allow me to nerd-out for a few minutes as a result of way too much thought about things that were meant to just be enjoyed and probably not picked apart.
I have been pushing a bunch of people around me to go and read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (because I love it way too much but also) because the way he uses language is super interesting to me from an improv standpoint. He creates this whole environment...not world, because the world he's talking about is actually this one, only different...but it's not different to the people that inhabit it of course because it's just "the world" so that's how he describes it, the characters interact with it and how it comes across to the reader....as the everyday, even though it couldn't be more unfamiliar in places.
He describes an environment that is essentially very foreign as if you already know about it, and instead of stopping to wedge in explanations of the things in that environment he makes reference to them repeatedly in context so the reader starts to gradually understand not only "what" is being described but also how it fits into the world, how it affects people around it and so on. The whole thing makes the world feel more familiar and comfortable since he doesn't break the idea that it's actually a place you'd recognize. He describes it the same way you would describe something you pass every day on your way to work.
which brings me to full-on theater dorkery.
it's the same set of actions that goes into establishing a really cool improv scene or larger environment. On stage you rarely (unless the form calls for it) just stop and describe the backdrop or environment or people in it ("hello, recently ex-girlfriend and welcome back to the office in which we both work".....no. not unless you're doing that to be meta-funny to other improvisers. You have become Galaxy Quest. Sometimes that can be super funny) to the audience, explain what a new random element "is" or who the people you're seeing "are" in this world you're creating on the fly. You do it by showing how the people on the stage relate to each other given their place and status in it, demonstrating the impact things in the world have on the people you're seeing and vice versa and the audience develops a textured and comfortable, if more or less complete, understanding of what might be a really very altered world that stretches way beyond just what is happening on stage. You create history and action at the same time, and at an alarming speed.
and I think that is unique to both forms of narrative - science fiction being one of the only literary genre's purposely grounded (until it crosses into pure fiction/fantasy) in reality or projections of possible outcomes of reality and creates THIS world with a simple "what if" applied to it, as opposed to a new world (in the case of fantasy) which bears explanation to make sense on some level or (in the case of "regular" fiction) simply uses the world we're in as a backdrop and plays out a scenario inside it.
Whereas, in improvisation, the rules and methods are largely the same - you create a 'world' in which the rules are changed (to steal completely from Tim Uren - you establish rules for the universe and run with it....a world in which all newspapers are missing the Sports section and GO) enough to make it unique and unpredictable but it's still inhabited by humans or things that we understand as 'real'. Of course, in scripted theater you hit the same marks as literature, either the story is one of fantasy or a scenario set "here", which both take some explaining to the audience as something they wouldn't necessarily understand, find familiar or relate to (in the case of fantasy) or they get it and you're not creating anything "new" in terms of the context.
Sure, there are people out there doing super-abstract work that goes to the other extreme for some insane amount of grant money that deal in neither, where the actors don't represent anything that currently exists and the context is removed entirely and can't be understood via normal vocabulary - that's called "contemporary dance" but as theater goes i think we're it.
We are totally the "Science Fiction" of "Theater"
no wonder we attract all the weirdos and can't get taken seriously.
whew. brain is tired.
glad I got that out of the way so I can go back to just digging Sci-fi for being entertaining and improv for just being fun.
Friday, March 28, 2008
I wonder where in the world Alicia Keyes might be
I think my gate must be in the 'st paul' end of the 'minneapolis/st paul airport' as it just took longer to walk here from security than the cab ride from my house.
Got to pass under my favorite weird piece of art on my way here, the sculpture over the food court around gate C12 that shows an antelope chasing a cheetah through the brush. It would interesting all by itslef but it sits on the text "all are equal under the law".
So the message I take from this thing is 'we'll all have an equal chance to kill and eat each other'.
Anyway, I'm up and at the airport far too early and the few hours of sleep I got were full of classic work-nightmare stuff, which is pretty typical when I go on the road and I'm sure the fact that I dream about arriving in the wrong city with the wrong equipment is symptomatic of stressing about my job too much, which is to say its perfectly normal for an adult American.
Watching my tiny jet pull up to the gate. Weather in Texas looks rough, which doesn't give me lots of hope that I won't be spending the day on it.
On the road.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Got to pass under my favorite weird piece of art on my way here, the sculpture over the food court around gate C12 that shows an antelope chasing a cheetah through the brush. It would interesting all by itslef but it sits on the text "all are equal under the law".
So the message I take from this thing is 'we'll all have an equal chance to kill and eat each other'.
Anyway, I'm up and at the airport far too early and the few hours of sleep I got were full of classic work-nightmare stuff, which is pretty typical when I go on the road and I'm sure the fact that I dream about arriving in the wrong city with the wrong equipment is symptomatic of stressing about my job too much, which is to say its perfectly normal for an adult American.
Watching my tiny jet pull up to the gate. Weather in Texas looks rough, which doesn't give me lots of hope that I won't be spending the day on it.
On the road.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
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