The Conversation While Writing
Posted: September 22, 2011 Filed under: Art, Story | Tags: Architect of Experience, Art, Essay, Humor, Humour, Narrative, Script, Story, Theatre, Thinking, Worth, Writing Leave a commentA man puts down his pen. A man picks up his pen. Indeterminable moments pass and his pen is back down. Perhaps, Man thinks, he needs a drink. Man picks up pen, gets up, and goes to get drink, realizes he cannot pour drink with pen in hand. Man sets down pen. Man realizes, via his behavior and the large number of empty tumblers on his desk, that he may have had enough to drink. Man sits down.
Maybe this isn’t how I want this story to start. Maybe I need to learn to shut up and let myself talk.
The Man, of course, isn’t just a Man, his name is…
Indetermineable moments pass and a name is still not found
Well his name isn’t important. What is important is that he is trying to write a book
How very self referential
And he is having trouble…
Not making it any better for yourself, are-
The man is in a room
Aren’t we all
Sitting at his desk
Who else would be sitting there
And he-
I think we know it’s a guy
And he very much hates his writer.
Hey, be careful there, I made you
Yes, I don’t think he cares very much about that
But I Created him
Was that capital C really necessary?
Well is is something of importance, isn’t it
No, it isn’t. you are just trying to grant what you do some false importance. As if creating a world and creating people in it makes you a God (capital G intended)
Well… Doesn’t it?
Oh don’t go down that road. They don’t exist. All this is, just so happens to be you sitting in a comfy armchair with a glass of watered brandy trying to escape into a world of your own making
But it has importance!
What, the Importance of the Artist? All False, I assure you. An artist creates things that people merely like or despise with all their hearts. Do they make foreign policy? Do they lobby for new laws concerning corporate regulation? No, they sit and whine and bitch and do nothing. How does that matter a whit?
It doesn’t
Exactly
Not to you, at least
Not to anyone.
Not true. Someone’s acting once inspired a man to try and kill Ronald Reagan.
A lunatic
A Human
A Crazy one
How does that matter? Every single one of us is at least a bit crazy, and we can sit and not be able to do anything about foreign policy, but every one of us can create. Every one of us can show someone something beautiful or interesting or horrifying.
But that doesn’t mean that what you create means anything to the world
The World? Screw the world. It doesn’t have to mean shit-all to the world. For all we know, the world isn’t sentient. You know who is? Us. We experience, we create, and we feel. We are the only reason we know we exist. Because like it or not, there is more than one of us. And I don’t know about the world, but if I can influence one person, if I can change then, then I have changed a world. Theirs at the very least. What you don’t realize is that this world isn’t one coherent mass, it is just a landmass inhabited by billions of people who see things differently, and billions of people who have their own worlds. So I’ll tell you this, you don’t have the dominion over worlds that I do. By just going on stage and speaking I can change a hundred, by writing I can change a thousand. That’s the thing. I don’t control or create reality, I add to it.
the McGurk Effect and Sound Design
Posted: August 25, 2011 Filed under: Art, Language, Science, Sound Leave a comment
This is not a phenomenon that effects the entire population, but being as interested in sound as I am, it presents a unique insight into the audio-visual link. I have always said that the most important part of sound design is making sure the listener links what they see to what they hear. If a convention isn’t established in that way, then the Sound Designer has failed his job. Expect more on this in the future.
Greek Jokes Aren’t Funny (Excerpt)
Posted: August 22, 2011 Filed under: Art, Story | Tags: Architect of Experience, Art, Excerpt, Humor, Humour, Narrative, Performance, Script, Theatre, Writing 1 CommentLarry: (pounding back a shot) well shit.
(Arlus walks up, Larry is poured shot after shot after shot of something clear, Arlus approached Barkeep)
Arlus: (worried) what’s he drinking?
Keep: Water
Arlus: …you keep water in a vodka bottle?
Keep: keeps the underage happy and paying
Arlus: (nods, then to larry) Larry, what happened? Wife leave you for a white bull again? Pregnant with a monster, is she?
Larry: nope (prepares for shot, takes it)
Arlus: Did Daddy cause another earthquake in Sparta?
Larry: Nope
Arlus: Hade’s steal your daughter away to the underworld and… something with a pomegranite?
Larry: (grunts)
Arlus: Did…
Larry: Nope
Arlus: I didn’t even finish!
Larry: already knew the answer
Arlus: well what was I going to…
Larry: Dionysus visited me today
Arlus: … hm?
Larry: Dionysus-
Arlus: no, I heard you, that one wasn’t all that funny
Larry: I wasn’t kidding
Arlus: yeah
Larry: he honestly did
Arlus: (pause) so why water?
Larry: just popped into my-
Arlus: seems a little weak for-
Larry: and just whipped it out-
Arlus: I mean, I know you can’t hold-
Larry: and it was just gigantic, then he-
Arlus: showed you how to take them, just-
Larry: told me to get up, started yelling-
Arlus: and the whipped cream makes it even better-
Larry: Told me to PROduce a play!
Arlus: and that’s how you take a shot!
Both: Wait… What?
Larry: you told me to take a straw and drink through my nose
Arlus: Dionysus told you what?
SILENCE
Arlus: I may have been drunk at the time
Larry: He, uh, told me to PROduce a play
Arlus: that’s not how you pronounce-
Larry: I don’t care
Arlus: yeah
SILENCE
Larry: so what does that even mean?
Arlus: Fresh vegetables for sale at a market
Larry: no, the-
Arlus: yeah, you pronounced it wrong
Larry: Don’t Care
Arlus: Figures. Hm… I think its when an asshole shows up and tells the director what to do.
Larry: well that doesn’t sound very helpful
Arlus: I could be wrong
Larry: yeah, that doesn’t sound right.
Silence
Arlus: does it mean…? Yeah, I’m out
Larry: me too.
Arlus: well, we could just go around and ask people what producing is, this is Athens, after all, someone should know.
Larry: Oh yes, that sounds like a fantastic idea. We could go to Lickus, the street lecher, and ask him, “do you know what a producer does?” and he flashes us and we say, “not that kind of producer, what a Theatrickal producer does” and he tells us he doesn’t know, but would sure as hell like to find out. So he follows us when we go to ask Scandalus, the politician, Acrylica, the beautician, Little Pintus, head of the league of orphans and the president of the competitive drinking league. We can ask flicus and Bickus, and kalamazoo! And then go and ask mr. floppity roo! And then we’ll take this great big mob of people up to mt. Olympus, stand in front of Dionysus, and say, “Listen here, you schmuck, none of THESE people know what the hell a producer does, why the hell should I?”
Arlus: You’re drunk… ( pause, picks up shot glass of water sniffs it, looks at Larry, who continues line)
Larry: (dawn of realization) Oh god Damnit! (leaves)
Arlus: yeah he probably has (moment, follows)
(Dionysus walks on, hands jug to Keep, asks for a gallon, Keep looks confused)
Dio: (to Keep) Think I was too hard on the fellow? He was pounding the drink pretty hard
Keep: (stunned) it was water
Dio: (looks angrily at Keep, grabs back his jug, starts to leave, glares back, and struts out)
Keep: Bye?
The Story in the Story
Posted: August 16, 2011 Filed under: Art, Story | Tags: Architect of Experience, Art, Audience, Essay, Experience, Humor, Narrative, Story, Theatre, Writing 2 CommentsEvery story humanity has ever told, and ever will tell, all come from the same myths, the same basic narratives. Boy finds friend, they find trouble; boy meets girl, they fall in love, they die or live happily ever after. Every that is going to be told has already been told. So how do you tell a story that is worth being heard again?
It is tempting for me at this point to write a list of what makes a story memorable; but the truth is, there are no specific methods. The key, however, seems to be resonance. A story, as should be obvious, needs to have some sort of relation to the person reading it. This can come in the form of an Active Relation, something someone wants to get out of the story, and a Passive Relation, something in a story that, for one reason or another, evokes an emotional reaction.
As always, the line between an Active and a Passive relation is larger and more blurred than “The Greatest CENSORED Hits of Ron Jeremy”. This is also true for how much of each element any one story may contain. Novels that are usually focused more on an Active than a Passive relation are what we have come to refer to as Crime or Detective novels. These are books that we read to try and figure out a mystery, and are actively involved in trying to decipher the plot. A Passive Relation can best be found in almost any comedic novel, where the entire point of which is to create the humorous and unexpected, and therefore inspire a passive relation (i.e. trying to make the reader laugh)
As always, the best road seems to lie in the middle. Well, at least according to my limited world-view. To illustrate why, you need only take the one piece of literature we have probably almost all heard read in monotone by an English teacher; Hamlet. This is a story that creates both an active relation, forcing the audience to determine if Claudio really did kill Hamlet sr., but also is a story, in its most basic form, about a boy losing his father, creating a Passive relation.
But Hamlet is a story we have all heard before, isn’t it, along with most of the stories we are so fond of telling. So how do we get an audience to listen to them? First, you give them something new, a new take on it, and a new perspective. Anything to pique their interest. But failing that, every good story, every story worth listening to, has to be both felt by the audience, and interpreted by them. The perfect moment is when the audience is halfway between slight confusion and emotional devastation when the plot finally resolves. If done right, its enough to leave most people speechless
Oh What a Rogue and Peasent Slave Are You (For Not Understanding “High Art”)
Posted: August 10, 2011 Filed under: Acting, Art, Performance | Tags: Acting, Actor, Architect of Experience, Art, Experience, Humor, Humour, Performance, Theatre, Writing 2 CommentsScrew. You. Shakespeare
This isn’t an open letter to good old Bill, mind you, I hold, and have always held, a deep love for all (Most) of the Bard’s works. Even still, screw you, Shakespeare, for ruining shakespeare for me in high school. Its not the words I hate, its not the writer, its not the content, its the way that people read them.
Nothing in the world can possibly be more sexually deadening to me than a perfectly enunciated Romeo and Juliette said in a perfectly iambic metronome. Its something akin to imagining the sweaty effort your parents made that earned your little white tadpole a seat on the 9-month egg express.
The joy of acting isn’t found in the words, its found in how they are said. I am of the firm belief that anyone can be inspired by Henry V’s “St. Crispin’s Day” Monologue, or that anyone can know pain by hearing Titus lament the destruction of his daughter. The power of those words isn’t as much in what they say, its how people say them. That seems obvious, doesn’t it, that the power of the Bard’s words are in how they are said. But we have a habit of taking ourselves out of the equation when it comes to Shakespeare’s works.
The joy in seeing one of Shakespeare’s works isn’t watching a perfectly rendered period reproduction with original accents, its in seeing an actor take words we have heard thousands of times, and saying them so we listen like its the first time. Like that first time that we actually heard the words spoken with emotion, not from a high school teacher, not from a monotone reading, the first time we heard someone actually MEAN those words.
The Asses in the Audience
Posted: July 27, 2011 Filed under: Art, Performance | Tags: Academic, Acting, Architect of Experience, Asses, Audience, Critique, Essay, Experience, Humanity, Performance, Philosophy, Theatre, Thinking, Writing 2 CommentsTheatre is all about one’s ass, everything we know and love about the stage has everything to do with our asses. Its about how many asses are in the seats, how comfortable those asses are, whether those asses need to pee, whether how often they move, how sore they are, or even how much those asses paid to be there.
And let me make this abundantly clear, it is not about the actual audience members. The audience itself thinks too much, is too swayed by reviews of people they believe to be knowledgeable. Audiences Talk, answer their cell-phones, throw things at actors and they are almost universally know-it-all children. An audience is an exceedingly ungrateful lot. Their asses, however, are remarkably honest. An audience member may say that they loathed a show, but if their ass is happy, then the show was well made.
Art (And Dirty Words)
Posted: July 23, 2011 Filed under: Art | Tags: Academic, Anthropology, Architect of Experience, Art, Essay, Experience, Humanity, Philosophy, Thinking, Worth, Writing Leave a commentI spend so much of my life worried about the predominance of culture that I have no clue anymore why culture needs its predominance. They say that culture is the currency of a people, but what purpose does this currency have if its only purpose seems to be to immortalize the creative. If any goal has ever irked me, it is the goal of immortality immortality. Only the selfish aspire to live forever, it’s a goal that only proves that one’s ego is so large they cannot stand to let it ever deflate.
Perhaps I am too cynical. Perhaps it could be said that the goal of creation is to spur change in the world, and it is almost certain that art has done that. Everything from books, to movies, to plays have shown the world something that it hasn’t seen before; that the shadow of hate still exists, what the future could hold, and what the past did, what life means. From a young age we are raised with stories whose entire purpose is to present to us a moral. Perhaps to a certain extent, Aesop raised us as much as our parents did. But outside childhood, are we still taught by stories, or do we just watch them enjoy the brief entertainment, and continue on. More concisely, what purpose does art serve in culture?
- To Teach and Inform
- Inciting socio-political change
- Moral stories
- Informing an individual about the past
- Positing a possible future
- To Entertain
- Absorb a viewer into a world
- Base titillation
- Incitement of an emotion
The first purpose of art, To Teach and Inform is a well-documented one; touted by academics everywhere who love to believe that art is not just for entertainment. To be honest, a fair amount of art is in fact used for teaching, but in recognizing the only purpose of art as education we overlook the driving force of Art. Entertainment.
It seems like such a dirty words when it comes to art. Why create something that merely entertains when it can hold a breadth of intellectual merit? Why create something that everyone can relate to when one can cater just to the critics? People need to be OK with creating Art that exists for the sole purpose of entertainment.
Why is it suddenly “Selling Out” when something is created just for entertainment’s value. God knows Shakespeare appealed to almost every income class in Britain, and he is still read today by students and professors alike. The problem is, academics try and see beyond the entertainment, reading too much into what they think he wrote into the words. Let me make this abundantly clear, When you are an underpaid writer/actor living in a place where writer/actors are considered vagrants, you don’t write to appease intellectuals, you write to appease everyone possible. Now just because someone writes to entertain the masses, doesn’t mean that they are selling out, it means they are writing to entertain the masses.
While teaching is A purpose of art, its value is determined by its entertainment. Art is only remembered if people actually watched it.
Monologue as Music
Posted: July 15, 2011 Filed under: Acting, Art, Performance | Tags: Academic, Acting, Architect of Experience, Art, Essay, Experience, Impulse, Monologue, Motivational, Music, Performance, TED, Theatre Leave a comment https://ted.com/talks/view/id/286So this is a thing I discovered via the usual route (being Stumble, of course), and something in it struck me. Zander, herein, talks about Impulses. This is best seen, he says, in young piano players pounding out a sonata or prelude. They hit every single note as an impulse, and the key to exciting and interesting classical music is to take one impulse, one thought, one motion, and use it to carry the entire piece. Some similarities between this and acting intrigued me.
It is increasingly common to have a director tell you that you should know every motivation for every single line you say; each line has to have a motivation. While I don’t doubt the validity of this statement, it leads to what Zander might call “two-cheek” playing.
Think of motivation as Impulse. Having a different impulse, and a different motivation for each line leads to a way of reading lines more befitting a nervous high school student than an actor. Find out where your impulses are, and use them sparingly. The longer you can carry a single thought through a monologue, the better. Big simple thoughts are more easily transmitted through a piece than hundreds of small ones. In an audition monologue, for instance, you should only ever use one impulse, one thought. And that impulse carries from your first words, until you walk off the stage.
We Are Our Art
Posted: July 4, 2011 Filed under: Art, Performance | Tags: Academic, Acting, Actor, Architect of Experience, Art, Blog, Essay, Experience, IT, Motivational, Performance, Talent, Theatre, Worth, Writing Leave a commentI am my art. That is the dilemma actors face: We are our art. As artists we are victims to our own self-doubt. Should our art suffer, so too do we. Many a theater teacher has told me, “you are your instrument, take care of your instrument.” Which is all well and good, but actors suffer by this fact more than they know. The world of theater sadly seems to be divided in between those who have IT and those who don’t. It is also generally accepted that those who don’t have IT have no way of getting IT. Talent is a cruel and evil word.
The line between these two groups varies depending upon whom you ask, but it leaves the question open: As an actor, if you don’t get a part, does that mean you aren’t good enough? Whether we like to admit it or not, that is the question that always comes up. Since we are our art, and since we don’t always get the part, we start to question our worth. And our worth seems to be so tied up with our lives and our art, if one falls, it seems like the world itself starts to fall apart.
This is where I start to get highly Emphatic (capital E intended). There is no line between those who have IT and those who don’t, because everyone has something to bring to the table. For every part in every play ever written, there is an actor to play that part.
At this point it almost pains me to draw the comparison between directing and cooking, but I might have to. Every actor has a different way of doing things, and a distinct presence on stage. A great director should be able to feel this out and be able to put actors together who both exemplify their roles, and act as a unit. It’s like cooking a meal; you can’t just toss whatever is most expensive into the pot to make good food. You have to choose your ingredients.
I guess the general point of this rant was to exemplify two things. First: that not getting an audition in no way means you are not a good actor, it just means you didn’t fit what the director wanted. Second: Talent is found in all forms; it is not a single commodity, but a wide breadth of building blocks combined in innumerable ways to create a unique performer. In this way, let it be said that no actor is ever untalented, or that one type of talent is lesser than any other.
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